In this volume social and ecological systems are analysed, addressing problems that do not fit neatly into single disciplines such as ecology, anthropology, economics or political science. The aim is to investigate how the stewardship of selected ecosystems can be improved by learning from management systems and their dynamics.

1. Linking social and ecological systems for resilience and sustainability Fikret Berkes and Carl Folke; Part I. Learning from Locally Devised Systems: 2. People, refugia and resilience Madhav Gadgil, Natabar S. Hemam and B. Mohan Reddy; 3. Learning by fishing: practical engagement and environemntal concerns Gíslí Palsson; 4. Dalecarlia in Central Sweden before 1800: a society of social and ecological resilience Ulf Sporrong; Part II. Emergence of Resource Management Adaptations: 5. Learning to design reslilient resource management: indigenous systems in the Canadian subarctic Fikret Berkes; 6. Resilience and neotraditional populations: the caiçaras of the Atlantic forest and caboclos of the Amazon (Brazil) Alpina Begossi; 7. Indigenous African resource management of a tropical rain forest ecosystem: a case study of the Yoruba of Ara, Nigeria D. Michael Warren and Jennifer Pinkson; 8. Managing for human and ecological context in the Maine soft shell clam fishery Susan S. Hanna; Part III. Success and Failure in Regional Systems: 9. Resilient resource management in Mexico's forest ecosystems: the contribution of property rights Janis B. Alcorn and Victor M. Toledo; 10. The resilience of pastoral herding in Sahelian Africa Maryam Niamir-Fuller; 11. Reviving the social system-ecosystem links in the Himalayas Narpat S. Jodha; 12. Crossing the threshold of ecosystem resilience: the commercial extinction of northern cod A. Christopher Finlayson and Bonnie J. McCay; Part IV. Designing New Approaches to Management: 13. Science, sustainability and resource management C. S. Holling, Fikret Berkes and Carl Folke; 14. Integrated management of a temperate montane forest ecosystem through holistic forestry: a British Columbia example Evelyn Pinkerton; 15. Managing chaotic fisheries James M. Acheson, James A. Wilson and Robert S. Steneck; 16. Social mechanisms and institutional learning for resilience and sustainability Carl Folke, Fikret Berkes and Johan Colding; Index.

'This is a scholarly work, with an international focus, providing detailed ethnography and analysis of local and regional resource management systems. It should prove useful to ecologists, some anthropologists, cultural geographers and ecological economists … The systems-based, interdisciplinary, non-reductionist spirit that permeates this book represents a significant contribution to the understanding of human/nature relations.' Michael Redclift, The Times Higher Education Supplement