Understand It

This 1-minute video summarizes the concept of EcoTipping Points.

Systems Thinking is a framework that looks at ecological decline as a consequence of interconnected elements across the human-environment system. Ecosystems and social systems are interwoven in an intricate relationship, with transformations in one part of the system creating ripples of impacts and pressures in other parts: declining fish stocks push fishers toward destructive methods, which damages reefs further, which reduces fish stocks more. Circular chains of interconnected impacts like this are feedback loops that create vicious cycles. They are why problems that seem simple resist easy fixes. Addressing individual symptoms, no matter how urgent, is limited in its impact.

Feedback loops can also reinforce restorative change: rebuilding traditional rainwater-harvesting ponds replenishes aquifers, which revives forest and vegetation, which prevents erosion, which makes it easier for communities to maintain their ponds. These are virtuous cycles, and finding the right ones to intentionally set in motion is the key to reversing decline.

Environmental losses will eventually lead to social losses. And so the interconnected human-environment system can be in a harmonious or self-destructive state depending on the choices we make and whether they create conditions in which social and environmental gains go hand-in-hand. EcoTipping Points are points in a human-environment system where sets of actions have the power to propel the system from one of those states to another. We call these powerful actions tipping point levers. Crossing a threshold happens when tipping point levers set in motion self-reinforcing vicious or virtuous cycles that feed into each other with such amplifying force that changes cascade through the human-environment system, spiraling it towards collapse or restoration.

For communities experiencing ecological decline, there have been negative tipping point levers that set in motion the vicious cycles pushing communities to maintain practices that further degrade their ecosystem and their lives. Frequently those negative tipping point levers are changes in technologies used by communities, brought on by shifts in their political, economic, or technological landscapes. Though they may be rooted in events many decades earlier, the vicious cycles they set off become deeply integrated across the human-environment system, inseparable from the workings of the community. Systems thinking gives us a way to see those cycles clearly. Once the pattern is visible, the question shifts from "how do we fix everything?" to "where can we intervene to start reversing it?" Knowing where the system is most open to change enables communities to devise targeted interventions powerful enough to act as levers for reversing decline. These positive tipping point levers set in motion a chain of self-reinforcing restorative impacts that cascade change through the human-environment system, creating a turnabout from decline to restoration. Finding the sites for these EcoTipping Points is the goal of using systems thinking to map and analyze the problem of decline.

How Feedback Diagrams Reveal Root Causes and Solutions. This video uses 'boxes and arrows' diagrams to show how circular chains of cause and effect drive both environmental decline and the success of interventions that tip a human-environment system toward restoration and sustainability.

With the concept in hand, the next step is to recognize the specific web of interconnected problems at the place you're working.