9 Ways to Manage for Resilience

1. Promote and sustain diversity in all forms (biological, landscape, social, economic and institutional).

2. Embrace and work with ecological variability, rather than attempting to control and reduce it.

3. Favour the use of modular components as linked but self-reliant sub-systems, rather than one large, over-connected system that could collapse with one internal failure.

4. Focus policy on slow variables that are associated with trends leading to extreme and undesirable change (such as gradual changes in atmospheric chemistry that affect climate systems, or steadily increasing consumer debt in financial systems).

5. Foster and be aware of tight feedbacks, such as frequent on-the-ground monitoring reports that warn of danger and allow for timely adjustments.

6. Take advantage of social capital – promote trust, well-developed social networks and leadership.

7. Embrace change and emphasize innovation, through learning and experimentation.

8. Design governance structures with redundancy, using multiple participants (government, commerce and civil society) and several supporting motivations, strategies and tools.

9. Include explicit recognition of all ecosystem services in development proposals and assessments (e.g., water purification and flood attenuation services of wetlands).

Adapted from Brian Walker and David Salt, 2006, Resilience Thinking.

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