Dear colleagues, As we see stresses emerging in our ecosystems and the wider biophysical environment, it is easy to forget that it is the symptom becoming visible - not the cause. And as the symptom does not manifest as a social problem we frequently start by calling in experts who are technically oriented. It seems as though we often forget that fixing these things actually requires quite a substantial social adjustment. Inevitably, the reality is that whatever goals and aims are finally chosen, implementing the solutions to reach them will involve a long process of difficult dealings with a great variety of individuals, groups, and institutions who can make them fail or succeed.
The Learning for Sustainability site - http://learningforsustainability.net - brings together resources to help us address and manage the social and process aspects of these issues. This portal site has been substantially revised and updated over the past few months as a guide to on-line resources for researchers, agency staff, NGOs, and other community leaders working to support social learning and collective action around sustainability issues. The importance of collaborative governance, and collaborative and adaptive management is acknowledged. A central section of this site links the reader to a range of guides, tools and checklists that can be drawn upon for guidance in this area to address issues involved in multi-stakeholder participation and engagement. Other pages here highlight the lessons that have emerged from researchers and practitioners in different sectors. These not only cover environmental management experience, but also point to related lessons from other sectors including HIV/AIDS, public health, disaster management, and protected natural area management. They are shown on their different pages to highlight the fact that each sector is looking at similar human dimensions practice change lessons, and that the more we can learn across sectors the better. A new page in this section now covers tools, tips and techniques for facilitators and other social engagement specialists. The Sparks for change blog is a recent addition to the site this month. It has been included as mechanism to highlight ideas and people that encourage constructive change. The last posting acknowledges Buzz Holling winning the won the 2008 Volvo Environment Prize. Readers are encouraged to suggest sites to add, thoughts to share, or stories that they think need to be written. Other pages provide links to best and emerging practice in social learning areas including networking, dialogue, knowledge management, and evaluation and reflection. Evaluation is given its own section which covers key topics such as participation, empowerment, logic models and scale. A research methods and approaches section has links to action research resources, material on doing integrated and interdisciplinary research, a listing of on-line journals in these areas, and it hosts the IntSci (Integrated Science for sustainability) discussion network. New pages link to resources on underpinning social research methods including systems thinking and action research. One page lists on-line resources for both post-graduate research students and their supervisors. Topics include thinking about the supervisory team, as well as tips for structuring and writing a thesis or dissertation. The Learning for Sustainability site - http://learningforsustainability.net - also manages additional pages on finding volunteering and job opportunities in the sustainability sector. These are directly accessible from the main site indexing system. As with the rest of the site these sections bring links to lot of on-line resources together in one easy to access site, each link is annotated to provide a guide to its contents. Please feel free to pass this posting on to colleagues and friends who may be interested in this content. Regards Will -------------------------------------- Dr. Will Allen LearningForSustainability.net - http://www.learningforsustainability.net - Supporting dialog, collective action and reflection for sustainable development E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
