This report addresses a critical part of the very front of social-ecological systems research. Learning can be seen as a process of change in the way we look upon the world — our thoughts, feelings and actions — which is dependent on the learner, the object of learning, and the physical, biological, social, cultural, and economic situation and setting. A key feature of resilience thinking is that changes, sometimes abrupt, often interpreted as crises, perceived or real, can trigger renewal and innovation if there is resilience. Learning plays a central role in resilience of social-ecological systems, in particular the recombination of experiences from different areas and diverse fields that may lead to new insights and pathways for development.
Gathering around ideas and theories on complex adaptive systems and resilience, the qualified authors of the report, actively discuss, connect and combine research perspectives that otherwise tend to focus solely on the individual, the community or society, and in relation to improved environmental stewardship. In an exciting and novel fashion, they contemplate upon and analyze the role of learning for finding pathways that make it possible to navigate social-ecological development toward sustainability, not for the sake of the environment but for our own sake in the new era of global social-ecological change.
Learning Research Methods 