Human-Environment Research: Past Trends, Current Challenges, and Future Directions

A major problem worldwide is the potential loss of fisheries, forests, and water resources. Understanding of the processes that lead to improvements in or deterioration of natural resources is limited, because scientific disciplines use different concepts and languages to describe and explain complex social-ecological systems (SESs). Without a common framework to organize findings, isolated knowledge does not cumulate. Until recently, accepted theory has assumed that resource users will never self-organize to maintain their resources and that governments must impose solutions. Research in multiple disciplines, however, has found that some government policies accelerate resource destruction, whereas some resource users have invested their time and energy to achieve sustainability. A general framework is used to identify 10 subsystem variables that affect the likelihood of self-organization in efforts to achieve a sustainable SES.

The incidence and importance of fire in the Amazon have increased substantially during the past decade, but the effects of this disturbance force are still poorly understood. The forest fire dynamics in two regions of the eastern Amazon were studied. Accidental fires have affected nearly 50 percent of the remaining forests and have caused more deforestation than has intentional clearing in recent years. Forest fires create positive feedbacks in future fire susceptibility, fuel loading, and fire intensity. Unless current land use and fire use practices are changed, fire has the potential to transform large areas of tropical forest into scrub or savanna.