Coral Reefs: A Reef Resilience Toolkit Module

Adaptability

The first principle, adaptability, relates to the capacity of a community to adjust to changes. This principle emphasizes the necessity of accepting change or crisis and living with uncertainty and risks. To enhance resilience, strategies for social-ecological management should take advantage of change and crisis, turning it into an opportunity for development. This approach to ecosystem management is similar to that of adaptive management.

Flood in American Samoa. Disasters test both community and and ecosystem resilience, and can provide valuable lessons for climate change adaptation. Photo © Stacey Kilarski

Leadership and vision — An important aspect of adaptability is leadership and vision. To build resilience, leadership needs to be a dynamic process, including change in leaders in response to social and biophysical conditions. A leader typically defines the visions and goals of an area, such as an MPA network, and may initiate management actions. However, a single leader is unlikely to maintain a resilient system, and multiple leadership roles vested in different individuals or groups is usually required for a resilient community.1

Information flow and social networks — Another important aspect of adaptability is social networks. Social networks affect motivation and cooperation and are the basis for effective communication. Through social networks, local users can draw on external sources of information and knowledge (e.g., among scientists and practitioners). For social resilience to be enhanced in a community affected by MPA networks, the aim should be to develop balanced social networks with a wide variety of people who connect institutions and create a group of expertise needed for problem solving and decision making.