ABSTRACT
Monitoring indicators, learning from changes observed, and adjusting policies and actions based on an assessment of those indicators are the hallmarks of the kinds of learning organizations we must create if we wish to learn our way into a sustainable, healthy future. Furthermore, one of the fundamental insights gained from the successes and failures of the past several decades of managing agroecosystems has been that indicators of health or sustainability cannot be derived or understood without referring to goals, and that goals are necessarily embedded in specific historical socioecolog- ical contexts. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the authors of this chapter have identified the characteristics of this process as (1) participatory, grounded in local communities but multiscalar; (2) embracing multiple perspectives among which trade-offs may need to be negotiated; and (3) rooted in a complex understanding of reality in which various components affect each other, often in surprising and sometimes disconcerting ways, through feedback loops across various timescales.
