Book Description Contents
Book Description

Bridging the gap between local knowledge and western science is essential to understanding the world's ecosystems and the ways in which humans interact with and shape those ecosystems. This book brings together a group of world-class scientists in an unprecedented effort to build a formal framework for linking local and indigenous knowledge with the global scientific enterprise.

Contributors explore the challenges, costs, and benefits of bridging scales and knowledge systems in assessment processes and in resource management. Case studies look at a variety of efforts to bridge scales, providing important lessons concerning what has worked, what has not, and the costs and benefits associated with those efforts. Drawing on the groundbreaking work of the Millennium Eco-system Assessment, Bridging Scales and Knowledge Systems will  be indispensable for future efforts to conduct ecosystem assessments around the world.

Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Introduction \ Walter V. Reid, Fikret Berkes, Thomas J. Wilbanks, and Doris Capistrano

PART I. Bridging Scales
Chapter 2. How Scale Matters: Some Concepts and Findings \ Thomas J. Wilbanks
Chapter 3. The Politics of Scale in Environmental Assessments \ Louis Lebel
Chapter 4. Assessing Ecosystem Services at Different Scales in the Portugal Millennium Ecosystem Assessment \ Henrique M. Pereira, Tiago Domingos, and Luís Vicente
Chapter 5. A Synthesis of Data and Methods across Scales to Connect Local Policy Decisions to Regional Environmental Conditions:
The Case of the Cascadia Scorecard \ Chris Davis
Chapter 6. Scales of Governance in Carbon Sinks: Global Priorities and Local Realities \ Emily Boyd

PART II. Bridging Knowledge Systems
Chapter 7. What Counts as Local Knowledge in Global Environmental Assessments and Conventions? \ J. Peter Brosius
Chapter  8. Bridging the Gap or Crossing a Bridge? Indigenous Knowledge and the Language of Law and Policy \ Michael Davis
Chapter 9. Mobilizing Knowledge for Integrated Ecosystem Assessments \ Christo Fabricius, Robert Scholes, and Georgina Cundill
 
PART III. Case Studies
Chapter 10. Keep It Simple and Be Relevant:
The First Ten Years of the Arctic Borderlands Ecological Knowledge Co-op \ Joan Eamer
Chapter 11. Cosmovisions and Environmental Governance: The Case of In Situ Conservation of Native Cultivated Plants and Their Wild Relatives in Peru \ Jorge Ishizawa
Chapter 12. Harmonizing Traditional and Scientific Knowledge Systems in Rainfall Prediction and Utilization \ Rengalakshmi Raj
Chapter 13. Managing People's Knowledge: An Indian Case Study of Building Bridges from Local to Global and from Oral to Scientific Knowledge \ Yogesh Gokhale, Madhav Gadgil, Anil Gupta, Riya Sinha, and K. P. (Prabha) Achar
Chapter 14. Barriers to Local-level Ecosystem Assessment and Participatory Management in Brazil \ Cristiana S. Seixas
Chapter 15. Integrating Epistemologies through Scenarios \ Elena Bennett and Monika Zurek
 
PART IV. Synthesis
Chapter 16. The Politics of Bridging Scales and Epistemologies: Science and Democracy in Global Environmental Governance \ Clark Miller and Paul Erickson
Chapter 17. Conclusions: Bridging Scales and Knowledge Systems \ Fikret Berkes, Walter V. Reid, Thomas J. Wilbanks, and Doris Capistrano
 
Notes
List of Authors