We are currently living in a planetary era that is profoundly
different to any other in human history. It is one in which we face
unprecedented challenges in terms of promoting human wellbeing
within the capacity of the environment to sustain this.
Individually, the challenges of sustainable development that
confront us – poverty, urbanization pressures, disease, food
production for a growing population, energy needs, biodiversity
loss, effects of climate change - are formidable; however, the
realization that these are all closely interconnected and must be
responded to simultaneously and in an integrated way is potentially
overwhelming. Shifting the trajectory of human life on earth to one
that is sustainable, where it is possible for individual and
collective human potentials to be realized, places a new demand on
science to enable this. It is in response to this demand that
sustainability science has emerged. Defined as use-inspired basic
research, sustainability science seeks to learn about the
interactions among humans (including their cultural, political,
economic and demographic characteristics), their technologies and
the environment, and to support the development of policies and
their execution, aimed at sustainable development. The complex
situations that sustainability science encounters cannot be
approached from within the confines of single scientific
disciplines. Transdisciplinary collaboration is required, through
which divides between the social and natural sciences and other
sources of knowledge are bridged, and relationships are established
between the producers of knowledge and the users thereof (policy
makers, managers). Without losing the focus that is possible
through discipline-oriented science, disciplinary boundaries must
become increasingly porous and elastic to enable new knowledge to
be created that responds to the complex challenges of sustainable
development. It is in this context that sustainability science is
explored from a southern African perspective in this title. Four
main themes are addressed: philosophical and conceptual foundations
for sustainability science; transdisciplinarity and knowledge
integration; resilience analysis of social-ecological systems; and,
learning for adaptive self-organization within social-ecological
systems. A number of thematically-linked chapters address research
questions that are posed under each theme. The title reflects the
areas of expertise of our team of contributing authors, including:
regional development planning, conservation planning, water science
and policy, environmental philosophy, social anthropology,
psychology, applied modeling, environmental assessment, adaptive
management and environmental economics. Collaborating across
disciplines, the authors explore the potential of sustainability
science in a number of southern African case studies. Southern
Africa is well-blessed with a diverse and vibrant human population
and a wealth of natural capital. The key challenge for sustainable
development is to grow society’s capacity to use this natural
capital to meet the needs of the region’s human population,
especially the poor, in ways that sustain environmental
life-support systems. Sustainability science has much to contribute
in this regard.
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