Eco-Tipping Points (Gerald Martin)

A presentation at the Hawaii Conservation Conference by Gerald Marten (East-West Center, Honolulu, HI) on "EcoTipping Points". EcoTipping Points are levers for turning around environmental decline. The problem with environmental problems is they are frequently driven by vicious cycles, powerful social and ecological forces that nullify efforts to solve the problems. The EcoTipping Points Project has assembled approximately a hundred environmental success stories from around the world to show what it takes to be successful (www.ecotippingpoints.org). The key is catalytic actions (EcoTipping Points) that combine an appropriate environmental technology with the social organization to put it into effect. For success, the ensuing chain of effects must turn around the vicious cycles with sufficient force to transform them into virtuous cycles, mobilizing natural ecological and social forces to redirect change toward sustainability. The EcoTipping Points principle is illustrated by success stories from Asia and the United States: rescuing an island’s coral-reef fishery; escaping pesticide addiction; restoring a region’s underground water; turning around urban decay; and saving a nation’s forests. The stories show how the restoration of ecosystem biodiversity and health goes hand in hand with restoring valuable services those ecosystems provide for human welfare. Application of the EcoTipping Points principle for communities to create more success stories is a matter of identifying vicious cycles that are driving the problem and homing in on levers to reverse them.

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Google Video | November 7, 2007

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