Anne Browning-Aiken,Márcio Cláudio Cardoso da Silva,Antonio Silvestre,Daniel José da Silva, University of Arizona, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, browning@u.arizona.edu
Brazil has embedded the socio-ecological learning process in the participatory management of river basin councils through its “sister laws” on water and the environment. GITHIDRO or, Grupo Transdisciplinar de Pesquisas em Governança da Água e do Território/ Tecnologias Sociais para a Gestão da Água (TSGA) a transdisciplinary group of researchers at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, tookthese laws and developed new interpretations of socio-ecological learning. ,They incorporated an ethical component and a dynamic and complex program of participatory “cycles of learning” that brought committees and communities to a common understanding of socio-ecological processes, laws, and potential for collective action. Using resilience theory as a framework for understanding how to sustain and enhance adaptive capacity” (Folke et al 2002), this paper analyzes the processes of socio-ecological learning, including focus groups, physical dynamics that blend the conceptual with the physical, visioning, socio-ecological mapping, project planning and community celebrations through interviews, meeting notes, and written documents of the six case studies. The potential for socio-ecological learning as a tool for building the capacity of watershed basin committees to plan and implement projects is substantiated as an important tool for building the resilience of the combined systems.
Key Words: Social Learning; Socio-Ecological System; Participatory Governance