South American Institute for Resilience and Sustainability Studies
Why Sustainability?
As revealed by the recent UN millennium assessment of ecosystems the structure of the world's ecosystems changed more rapidly in the second half of the twentieth century than at any time in recorded human history, and virtually all of Earth's ecosystems have been significantly transformed through human actions. The most rapid changes in ecosystems are now taking place in developing countries. Ecosystem services, particularly food production, timber and fisheries, are important for employment and economic activity. However, while intensive use of ecosystems often produces the greatest short-term advantage, excessive and unsustainable use can lead to losses in the long term.
Why Resilience?
The impacts of human actions on ecosystems are often slow to become apparent. Also, some changes are difficult to predict, because they are gradual only until they reach a certain threshold, at which large changes occur suddenly. Examples of abrupt changes include the start of epidemics, the collapse of a fish population, and shifts of lakes from a clear to a turbid state. On a larger scale, regional climate systems and also social systems may change abruptly if a tipping point is reached. Recent scientific advances have demonstrated that in the vicinity of such tipping points complex systems such as societies, ecosystems and climate systems may gradually lose resilience. They become increasingly fragile, to the point that small perturbations may trigger an irreversible shift to another state. Scientists across a range of disciplines have now turned their focus for sustainability studies on resilience, defined as the ability of a system to maintain its essential functions in the face of perturbations. The reason for this is that while perturbations such as earthquakes or droughts cannot be controlled or managed, resilience usually can. The challenge thus is to find out what determines the resilience of different complex systems. This is a scientific field in development, in which interaction of disciplines is obviously required. Better case studies, experiments, theories and models are needed to understand the links between ecosystem change and impacts on human well-being and to assess the economic consequences of ecosystem change.
Why South America?
South American science has been developing strongly over the past years. This is well illustrated by an analysis by Holmgren and Schnitzer in PLoS Biology (2004) entitled 'Science on the rise in developing countries'. The authors show that the scientific output per dollar spent in Latin America is now higher than in North America, and that the trend in Latin America is upwards, whereas in North America it is downwards. On the other hand, Latin American science tends to reach lower impact journals and citation scores. We feel that the time is ripe for an institute that could catalyze a development towards high impact science that serves to enhance the region's long term sustainable development; an institute that would help the network of scientific cooperation within South America, and strengthen the links to an international network of excellent scientists.