Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability

Journal or Book Title: Science China - Life Sciences

Volume/Issue: Online

Year Published: 2016

Meeting human needs while sustaining ecosystems and the benefits they provide is a global challenge. A major barrier to achieving sustainable development goals is the lack of sufficient knowledge on the complex relationships between humans and nature (Loucks et al., 2001; Liu et al., 2007). Different parts of the world have never been as closely connected through all means of flows (e.g. information, labor, goods and products) as today. Such intensive interactions not only affect human systems, but also change natural systems (Leslie et al., 2015). However, these interactions and feedbacks were largely downplayed or ignored in conservation practices. Though the idea of developing conservation plans that involve local communities and related stakeholders has been advocated for decades, most practices were conducted at the local scale but ignoring the interactions between distant systems, and/or focused on few specific interests (e.g. firewood consumption, tourism, etc.). Given this inadequate consideration of the critical interactions between human and natural systems, it is quite often that the practical applications benefit one or few targeting species, but fail to support human needs, which may compromise conservation in the long run. Thus, it is critical to develop innovative systems approaches that improve human well being while sustaining wildlife populations and their habitats.

DOI: 10.1007/s11427-016-0349-0

Type of Publication: Journal Article