Reply to Comment on 'In complexity we trust: learning from the socialist calculation debate for ecosystem management'

We would like to thank the Bingham et al for their Comment, as it provides some important nuance to our perspective (Salliou and Stritih 2023) that was partly constrained by its short format. Indeed, we agree with their comment on many points, such as the need to strengthen cross-scale connections and engage in humble planning that allows space for adaptive decisions and self-organization. However, while Bingham et al argue against a hypothetical misinterpretation of our perspective by "cynical actors", they themselves engage in several strawman arguments—misrepresenting our position in order to more easily criticize it. Our perspective did not call for giving up on any planning or coordination, and neither do we believe that we are 'so utterly helpless against the scale of the crisis that we should give up on charting a course'. Given the global crises at hand, we are acutely aware of the need to find effective and equitable solutions for addressing climate change and biodiversity loss. However, in this process, we need to acknowledge the complexity and uncertainty of the systems we are trying to manage, and be reflective about how our work can be translated into practical impacts. In this response, we would therefore like to clarify the characteristics of complex systems, address the role of states and property rights in ecosystem management, and discuss the role of models and participation.

In making the argument that 'more complexity is not always better', Bingham et al focus on the relationships between diversity and productivity or stability. We acknowledge that the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are far from clearcut, but the diversity of components is only one feature of complex systems, with others including the connections between systems components, nestedness, adaptation, and emergent properties (Riva et al 2022). For example, adaptive species and communities emerge from selection processes operating at the level of individual organisms (Levin 2005, Carroll et al 2023). Another emergent property of complex ecosystems are disturbances, which have traditionally been seen as negative in ecosystem management. In Europe, for example, extensive efforts go into preventing and suppressing bark beetle outbreaks through sanitary logging, with questionable success (Dobor et al 2020). However, such disturbances can play an important role in facilitating the adaptation of forests to climate change (Thom et al 2017). It might sometimes be socially desirable to resist adaptive processes in ecosystems (e.g. to save a species from extinction), but such resistance will require sustained efforts over time, while accepting or facilitating adaptive dynamics is likely to be easier and more effective in promoting ecosystem function (Carroll et al 2023). Although relationships between ecosystem complexity and productivity or stability seem to be context-dependent and uncertain, as described by Bingham et al, we believe we should err on the side of caution and strive to maintain the complexity and adaptive capacity of ecosystems, even when this does not directly result in higher stability or productivity.

A key feature of complex systems is the network of interactions between system parts (Norberg and Cumming 2008, Riva et al 2022). In social-ecological systems, these interactions include the exchange of information, learning, and coordination between actors. Network approaches provide some insights into the role of coordination in ecosystem management (Bodin and Crona 2009). For example, coordination between actors that manage interconnected ecosystem patches facilitates adaptation (Barnes et al 2017). Strong central actors can facilitate coordination, but highly centralized networks may also have less space for innovation and diverse responses of individual actors, and are more vulnerable when the central actor is dysfunctional (Bodin and Crona 2009).

Another important consideration in complex systems is their nestedness. Actions at one level lead to emergent properties at broader scales, which in turn influence the smaller scale (Levin et al 2013), from individual organisms to the global climate system. These cross-scale interactions pose an important challenge for the management and research of social-ecological systems, which have mainly been studied at rather local scales (Cumming et al 2020). When it comes to global challenges, such as climate change, we fully acknowledge that global-scale coordination is needed. This is in line with the principle of subsidiarity mentioned in our perspective, where lower levels of governance should maintain independence, except on issues that affect broader scales and can thus more effectively be addressed on a higher level. However, a focus on global commitments and regulations should not distract from mitigation efforts at diverse scales, including local, national, and regional levels, which can achieve multiple co-benefits (Ostrom 2010, Dubash 2023), while also enabling learning from different experiences (Ostrom 2010).

A central critique of our perspective is based on the assumption that learning from past failures of central planning would translate into a full endorsement of 'laissez-faire' capitalism, i.e. a total absence of state regulation. In fact, both our perspective and classical liberal economists agreed that state regulation is often necessary to enforce the rule of law and guarantee some public goods. However, just as it would be naïve to assume that the free market works perfectly, it would be equally naïve to assume that state intervention is always for the better. In fact, some of the examples of environmental degradation brought up in the comment are examples of collusion between states and corporations at the expense of the property rights of individuals or local communities. While the example cited by Bingham et al regarding forestry in Cameroon (Buchy and Maconachie 2014) was intended to highlight the shortcomings of decentralization, our interpretation suggests it is, in fact, a classic case of the central state's failure to establish a clear legal framework to ensure the fundamental recognition and enforcement of indigenous property rights. In this case, the state forest department colludes with logging companies and local elites, while restricting the size of community forests and limiting the potential of communities to gain benefits from their forests legally.

In their comment, Bingham et al express concern that our perspective might be used to delegitimize government-led sustainability initiatives. In fact, there are many cases where we believe that a critique of government-led sustainability initiatives is justified or even necessary. Some examples include the EU's common agricultural policy, which claims to be 'green' but has been ineffective or even harmful for biodiversity (Pe'er et al 2019, Simoncini et al 2019, Hristov et al 2020), top-down resettlement programs that aim to increase climate resilience but instead increase the vulnerability of marginalized communities in Ethiopia and Mozambique (Eriksen et al 2021), and large-scale tree planting efforts that failed to increase forest cover or improve rural livelihoods in India (Coleman et al 2021), reduce biodiversity in Chile (Heilmayr et al 2020), or promise carbon storage while disregarding increased fire risk in South Africa (Stevens and Bond 2023). To avoid further misinterpretations, we do not argue that all government-led initiatives are inherently bad, but rather that we should remain critical of large-scale solutions from powerful actors that reduce local autonomy and simplify ecosystems, regardless of whether or not these actors are government-related.

A further concern expressed in the comment regards the dangers of privatization of nature, expressing a strong value judgement that privatization is a priori negative. However, there is strong evidence that clear property rights, either customary, community-based property or private property, are critical for sustainable forest management and reducing deforestation, as demonstrated e.g. in Uganda (Walker et al 2023), Brazil (Pacheco and Meyer 2022) and Guatemala (Gibson et al 2002). Therefore, while we do not argue for a privatization of nature for the benefit of oligopolistic corporations, we believe that judgements about the benefits or dangers of privatization should be evidence-based.

In their comment, Bingham et al point out the growing availability of models and tools for addressing uncertainty in planning, and for involving stakeholders in planning processes. These developments are important and welcome. However, many of the mentioned modelling approaches are still far from being widely used in practice. Most ecosystem service models do not address structural uncertainty (i.e. uncertainty about the choice of variables and relationships between them) (Bryant et al 2018, Willcock et al 2020). Ecosystem service valuations rarely involve stakeholders or address the diverse types of values of nature (Schaafsma et al 2023). All of these limitations are propagated to models that seek to optimize land-use decisions for ecosystem service provision. Nevertheless, we agree that models can be a useful tool to support learning and decision-making at different scales, when used with awareness of their limitations, and especially in a participatory context (Etienne 2013, Mayer et al 2023).

Many democratic states, NGOs, and research organizations have recognized the need for stakeholder participation in environmental decision-making. In practice, however, they often fail to delegate real decision-making power to participants (Wehn et al 2015, Newig et al 2023). Empowering participants in planning and decision-making is important from the perspective of democracy and environmental justice, as well as for better environmental outcomes (Newig et al 2023). We believe that as researchers, we should aim to support the empowerment and adaptive capacity of local actors and communities (Rahman et al 2023), e.g. by using our models to address questions that are relevant from their perspective. Therefore, we are glad that our perspective provoked reflections about the role of humble planning among the authors of the comment, and hope that they will engage their modelling and planning skills together with other stakeholders towards adaptive solutions across scales.