Resilience 2014: Planetary boundaries, politics and pathways

How can we build development pathways that enhance sustainability and resilience, integrating ecological integrity, social equality, human rights, well-being and security? That was the tough question at the centre of Professor Melissa Leach’s presentation at the Resilience 2014 conference in Montpellier, France, this morning.

Prof. Leach, former STEPS Centre Director and new IDS Director, opened the second day of the conference in a plenary dialogue with Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC). She put forward ideas for challenging unsustainable and unjust development pathways, opening up to appreciate alternatives and enabling and supporting transformational pathways based on the STEPS Centre’s pathways approach and 3Ds agenda. You can view her presentation here:

Melissa Leach: Planetary boundaries, politics and pathways. Plenary dialogue, Resilience 2014. from STEPS Centre

A interesting commentary about the session was posted by Prof. Joern Fischer of the Institute for Ecology at Leuphana University Lueneburg, on his Ideas for Sustainability blog Development AND resilience vs. development OR resilience.

And if you would like to read more about the work the STEPS Centre and SRC have done together, combining our approaches, have a read of Between social and planetary boundaries: Navigating pathways in the safe and just space for humanity, authored by Profs. Leach and Rockström and economist Kate Raworth, as part of the World Social Science report 2013.