Bridging the gap between local knowledge and western science is essential to understanding the world's ecosystems and the ways in which humans interact with and shape those ecosystems. This book brings together a group of world-class scientists in an unprecedented effort to build a formal framework for linking local and indigenous knowledge with the global scientific enterprise.
Contributors explore the challenges, costs, and benefits of bridging scales and knowledge systems in assessment processes and in resource management. Case studies look at a variety of efforts to bridge scales, providing important lessons concerning what has worked, what has not, and the costs and benefits associated with those efforts. Drawing on the groundbreaking work of the Millennium Eco-system Assessment, Bridging Scales and Knowledge Systems will be indispensable for future efforts to conduct ecosystem assessments around the world.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is an international process designed to meet the needs of decision makers and the public for scientific information concerning the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and options for responding to those changes. Leading scientists from more than 100 nations will conduct the assessment, with oversight by a Board comprised of representatives of four international conventions, five United Nations agencies, international scientific organizations, and leaders from the private sector, NGOs, and indigenous groups. The MA is designed to meet some of the assessment needs of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Convention to Combat Desertification, and the Wetlands Convention, as well as needs of other users in the private sector and civil society. It was launched by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in June 2001. The first products will be released in 2003, and the main products will be released in 2004. It is anticipated that a process like the MA will be repeated every 5 to 10 years.
Walter V. Reid is a consulting professor with the Stanford Institute for the Environment in Stanford, California, and was the Director of the Millennuim Ecosystem Assessment.
Thomas J. Wilbanks is a Corporate Research Fellow and Leader of Global Change and Developing Country Programs at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Doris Capistrano is Director of the Forests and Governance Programme at the Center for International Forestry Research in Bogor, Indonesia.
Fikret Berkes is professor of natural resources and Canada Research Chair in Community-Based Resource Management at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.
