Escape pathways

Abstract

This article highlights examples of transition pathways towards more sustainable natural resources management and farming systems. The common thread is that all involve ‘changing the boundaries’ in one or more significant ways, including new ways of thinking about core businesses and stakeholder involvement, creating new spaces and processes for experimentation and co-learning, discovering new practices and technological opportunities, and finding a new balance between public and private standard setting and regulation. Each promises greater resilience in the face of uncertainties associated with climate change, market risks and policy fluctuations that are unforeseeable as to scale, timing, intensity or consequence. Each involves purposeful change in the institutions governing current mainstream practice.