ABSTRACT
An unprecedented combination of pressures is emerging to threaten the health of human and ecological systems across the world. Continued population growth, rapidly changing consumption patterns and the signals of climate change are driving limited resources of food, energy, water and materials towards and beyond critical thresholds (Pretty, 2007; Brown, 2008; Jackson, 2009). Modern life has brought astonishing technological advances, but modernization is also a story of traditional and place-based cultures eroding beneath swift currents of change. However, vulnerabilities now reach into the global arena, as exemplified by the latest economic crisis and the rolling consequences of oil depletion.
