ABSTRACT
Euro-American colonization of southeastern South Dakota started the region on a path that has resulted in the creation of mostly monofunctional landscapes that are brittle to socio-environmental variability. Yet with changes to our relationships with the human and more-than-human world, we have the capacity to create resilient landscapes that allow us to become mostly self-sufficient in food, energy, water, and material needs. This shift would require an embrace of general resilience and transformability, which would not be a form of intensive management but rather a way of embracing change, celebrating innovation, and maintaining high levels of diversity and redundancy in our socio-ecological systems. Climate change and other socio-ecological drivers are likely to force change, and having a clear and shared vision of a resilient region will help to guide us to a future where we are able to meet the needs of the human and more-than-human world.
