Sustainability in Costa Rica

a. Let's assume that "sustainability" is complex.

What if sustainability is an emergent characteristic of human activities, rather than being to be able to be directly managed?

We need to use our new eyes to see how this might work.

• complex systems
• scale
• resilience cycle

b. Costa Rica has made some decisions that illustrate a different path.

narrative on the history

example of Jansen's project in Guanacaste

daily-and-ellison-2002.html

 

c. Costa Rica's biodiversity plan is a good example of a strategy to manage a complex system

definition of biodiversity includes evolutionary time scale

link to Biodiversity Conservation Plans

 

set up the reserves with independent management and different plans

map of reserves

diversity strategy based on sound principles learned from biodiversity

• multiple strategies
• mosaic
• complexity of the management strategy
• not a winner-take-all business strategy (which is Lamarckian)
• relies on a large body of good ideas combined locally in different ways (Darwinian)