Abstract:Scientists from the natural and social sciences and from across the world convened at Sweden's Friibergh Manor in October 2000. Participants concluded that promoting the goal of sustainability requires the emergence and conduct of the new field of sustainability science. Sustainability science seeks to improve on the understanding of nature-society interactions. By structure, method, and content, sustainability science must differ fundamentally from most science as we know it. Sustainability science will learn to work with all manner of social groups to recognize how they come to gain knowledge, establish certainty of outlooks, and adjust their perceptions as they relate to each other's needs. Meeting the challenge of sustainability science will also require new styles of institutional organization to foster and support inter-disciplinary research over the long term; to build capacity for such research, especially in developing countries; and to integrate such research in coherent systems of research planning, assessment and decision support.
Keywords:sustainability science, Friibergh Workshop, nature-society interactions, sustainable development, environment and development |