SYMPOSIA SESSIONS
Symposium
Socio-Ecological Resilience and Biodiversity
Organizer(s):
Tania D'haijere
An overview of the activities of a Belgian Network and their partner universities on Socio-ecological resilience and biodiversity in Pantropic.
SECORES is the Belgian Network on Social-Ecological Resilience. Created by 6 organizations (Bos+, CEBioS, Join for Water, Uni4Coop, Via Don Bosco, WWF), our network aims at
improving knowledge of social-ecological resilience via learning and exchanging;
putting our theme higher on political agendas via advocacy and dialogue;
stimulating synergies between interested actors
Our vision is that an integrated and holistic biosphere-based approach is needed. Humans have a direct influence on ecosystem resilience, and vice versa, particularly in a rapidly changing world with a clear link to climate change and transnational challenges. The ethical and ecologically sustainable utilisation of nature are therefore key components of the concept of human well-being. The ultimate change this network aspires to is robust well-being of local communities in their surrounding ecosystems which, we believe, is brought about by improving social-ecological resilience.
Specifically, this refers to communities (including vulnerable youth) living in landscapes or river catchments as well as more urban residents, who impact or interact with natural and agroecosystems in these landscapes, and whose well-being depends directly and indirectly on the services these ecosystems provide.
This network aims to increase the space for exchange and learning and the complementarity, synergy, and collaboration in building social-ecological resilience in the partner countries as well as strengthening national and international advocacy and policy in this field.
The network organised multiple workshops in different tropical countries for reflection and exchange on resilience of social-ecological systems. The symposium covers the ways we work, our vision of socio-ecological resilience and some cases studies from our members. We also promote scientific research around socio-ecological resilience, and researchers are presenting approaches to evaluate socio-ecological resilience and how they integrate the concept in their studies on different tropical ecosystems.