Handbook

The transition to more sustainable resource use requires fundamental changes in our thinking about the environment. We need to better understand that nature and humanity are dynamic and co-evolving, and that achieving sustainability and addressing global warming is not simply about decreased consumption, but rather about increasing our capacity to meet a range of challenges. Resilience thinking focuses understanding the dynamics and development of complex social-ecological systems. It focuses on the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change, so as to retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks. Communities must seriously consider ways to foster resilience in our transformation to a more sustainable society.