C. S. Holling

C. S. Holling

C.S. "Buzz" Holling is an Emeritus Eminent Scholar and Professor in Ecological Sciences at the University of Florida. Holling is one of the conceptual founders of ecological economics. Holling received his Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia. He worked for the Canadian Department of Forestry, the Institute of Animal Resource Ecology, and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

He has been awarded two major awards from the Ecological Society of America, the Mercer Award and the Eminent Ecologist Award. He also received the Kenneth Boulding Memorial Prize and an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Guelph. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a foreign Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and has been awarded the Austrian Cross of Honor for Arts and Science.

He was founding editor-in-chief of Conservation Ecology, now renamed Ecology and Society. He was also the founder of the Resilience Alliance.

Throughout his research, Holling has blended systems theory and ecology with simulation modeling and policy analysis to develop integrative theories of change that have practical utility. He has introduced important ideas in the application of ecology and evolution, including resilience, adaptive management, and population. His work is also frequently cited in the fields of ecological economics and the human dimensions of global change.

Foundations of Ecological Resilience

Ecological resilience provides a theoretical foundation for understanding how complex systems adapt to and recover from localized disturbances like hurricanes, fires, pest outbreaks, and floods, as well as large-scale perturbations such as climate change. Ecologists have developed resilience theory over the past three decades in an effort to explain surprising and nonlinear dynamics of complex adaptive systems.

Panarchy Synopsis

Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems

‘Panarchy’ is a new term coined from the name of the Greek god Pan, a symbol of universal nature and associated with unpredictable change. It represents an alternative framework for managing the issues that emerge from the interaction between people and nature. That interaction generates countless surprises, often the result of slow changes that can accumulate and unexpectedly flip an ecosystem or an economy into a qualitatively different state. That state may be not only impoverished, but also effectively irreversible.

Panarchy

Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems

Creating institutions to meet the challenge of sustainability is arguably the most important task confronting society; it is also dauntingly complex. Ecological, economic, and social elements all play a role, but despite ongoing efforts, researchers have yet to succeed in integrating the various disciplines in a way that gives adequate representation to the insights of each.

Panarchy, a term devised to describe evolving hierarchical systems with multiple interrelated elements, offers an important new framework for understanding and resolving this dilemma.

Rights to Nature

Ecological, Economic, Cultural, and Political Principles of Institutions for the Environment

Property rights are a tool humans use in regulating their use of natural resources. Understanding how rights to resources are assigned and how they are controlled is critical to designing and implementing effective strategies for environmental management and conservation.

Rights to Nature is a nontechnical, interdisciplinary introduction to the systems of rights, rules, and responsibilities that guide and control human use of the environment.