ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an approach to addressing complex system dynamics in the quest for pathways to sustainability. There are plenty of statistics to show that there are accelerated rates of change in the world today. In natural systems, the impacts of climate change, land-use shifts, hydrological pressures and pollution, for instance, are well documented. In applied policy arenas, then, the last century has seen the emergence of certain ways of thinking which have defined ‘good’ science and so guided policy thinking and intervention. The brevity also certainly does violence to some of the more nuanced and specific debates within such areas of work. For many years, both in scientific and popular discourse, the dynamics of ecological systems were thought of in terms of ‘balance’ and ‘equilibrium’ with disturbance from stable states seen as a divergence from a ‘natural’ condition.
