vesterberg.se

We have many interesting initiatives in Sweden; I have written about Tällberg Foundation earlier. We also have the Stockholm Resilience Centre, which was started in January 2007. It is an international centre that focuses on research for governance of social-ecological systems with a special emphasis on resilience. The term social-ecological means that humans  must be seen as a part of, not apart from, nature.

What is resilience? Wikipedia says:

Resilience is the property of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed elastically and then, upon unloading to have this energy recovered.

Stockholm Resilience Centre defines it this way:

Resilience refers to the capacity of a social-ecological system both to withstand perturbations from for instance climate or economic shocks and to rebuild and renew itself afterwards.

A resilient system is prepared for change and can deal with it and survive. It bounces back after challenges and shocks. Its goals are sustainability. Nature is designed this way.

Most of our man-made systems have developed in the other direction. We desire efficiency, maximized production and monetary profit. Diversity is suffocated. Healthy buffering is removed and just-in-time is what counts. The result is short-sightedness. We get fragile and nervous systems. In economical turbulence, when one fall – many others fall. We have to identify the dangerous policies and exchange them for resilient policies, whether it be in the social, economical or any area.

Stockholm Resilience Centre have a lot of interesting videos at their site, many interviews and some seminars. For example, have a look at an interview with Buzz Holling, a well-known researcher on this subject.