Political ecology and ecological resilience: An integration of human and ecological dynamics

The biosphere is increasingly dominated by human action. Consequently, ecology must incorporate human behavior. Political ecology, as long as it includes ecology, is a powerful framework for integrating natural and social dynamics. In this paper I present a resilience-oriented approach to political ecology that integrates system dynamics, scale, and cross-scale interactions in both human and natural systems. This approach suggests that understanding the coupled dynamics of human-ecological systems allows the assessment of when systems are most vulnerable and most open to transformation. I use this framework to examine the political ecology of salmon in the Columbia River Basin. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.