Ecosystem Thinking
Understand the nested relationships that influence change in complex systems
Ecosystem = Community + Habitat
All life goes on as patterns of relationships. An ecosystem is just a pattern that has some overall persistence in a place and over time. We need make no distinction between the human and “natural” world.
Depending on our interest we might zoom in and look at the ecosystem of a single tree or café, or zoom out and consider a forest or a city, or a logging business in a forest. The ecosystem comprises two things: the community that interacts, and the place, or habitat, where the interaction happens (including online).
The community does not have to regard itself as such — the ecosystem need have no overall “community of interest” or purpose. The pattern we recognise as an ecosystem emerges from the collective pattern of interactions — from the co-ordination of the community.
Ecosystems are nested and overlapping at many different scales. The tree is influenced by the forest ecosystem, which may be linked by migrating species to the other side of the planet. The café might be the hub for an innovation system with international links.
Ecosystem thinking helps us locate our issue of concern in the appropriate pattern of interactions that maintain it and might change it.
Exercise
For a topic whose future is an issue of concern for you, pick a particular organisation or type of person who plays a significant role.
Using Holism with Focus, work out from that focus, exploring the other main actors and their stable patterns of interaction in which that organisation or person acts.
Think of these patterns as comprising a community of actors within some place of interaction — as a stable ecosystem. Find its natural boundary within which it is the dominant pattern.
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