Opportunities and obstacles to socioecosystem-based environmental policy in Mexico: expert opinion at the science-policy interface

Ecology and Society: a journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability

ManuelMaass,¹  AnaCordova,²  MiguelEquihua,³  ElenaLazos Chavero,⁴  AntonyChallenger,⁵ 

[1] SocioEcos/CONACyT Network;El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Departamento de Estudios Urbanos y del Medio Ambiente, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico;Instituto de Ecología, A.C. (INECOL), Xalapa, México;Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Cd. Mx., Mexico;Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Campus Morelia, Mexico

关键词: complex adaptive systems;    environmental governance;    expert opinion;    mainstreaming;    Mexico;    public policy;    social-ecological systems;    socioecosystem;    sustainable development;    transdisciplinarity;   

DOI  :  10.5751/ES-10066-230231

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Resilience Alliance Publications

【 摘 要 】

The urgent need to revert the ecological and social equity crises of the current development model and realize the potential of sustainable development has led several disciplines to converge on the socioecosystem concept as the most appropriate theoretical framework for research and public policy. The socioecosystem approach recognizes that social systems are integrated with natural systems and seeks to adaptively comanage socioecosystem coevolution for the sustainable development of both systems. We hypothesize that incorporation of this approach into environmental policy in Mexico could help resolve many of the problems that currently undermine policy effectiveness. To find out to what extent policy professionals might concur with this hypothesis, and what the opportunities and obstacles to implementing socioecosystem-based policy might be, research was conducted to elicit the expert opinion of officials responsible for formulating and implementing environmental policy in Mexico. The principle opportunities consist in the fact that experts intuitively understand the socioecosystem approach, and that most perceive advantages in adopting it because its policy attributes can potentially help to resolve many of the factors they identify as limiting the success of current environmental policies. Obstacles to its adoption include institutional barriers and the vested interests that benefit from the status quo.

【 授权许可】

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