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The study of sustainable systems is crucial for addressing global environmental challenges and fostering long-term societal well-being.
Through sustainable system learning, individuals acquire the knowledge, skills, and values necessary to promote and improve sustainable development.
By learning from existing sustainable systems, we can gather valuable insights and practices that can be applied to various domains, such as education, facilities management, and business.
These existing sustainable systems demonstrate successful strategies for resource management, waste reduction, renewable energy utilization, and community engagement. By understanding and implementing these strategies, we can create a more sustainable future for ourselves and future generations.
To develop a deep understanding of sustainable systems, it is important to cultivate competence in systems thinking.
Engle et al highlighted the significance of systems thinking in the context of sustainability literature. Systems thinking involves analyzing and comprehending social-ecological systems' structure, components, and dynamics. This analysis can be conducted at various geographic scales and encompass multiple domains.
Education for sustainable development and systems thinking can be a common foundation for sustainability education worldwide.
By fostering different levels of systems understanding, such as working in transdisciplinary teams and acquiring basic ecological knowledge, we can promote discussions about values and cultivate a global culture of sustainability.
In today's world, the concept of sustainability has become an increasingly important concern. As we strive to create a better future for our planet, there is a growing recognition of the need for education that promotes sustainable development. This shift in focus requires a change in the way we approach education in our modern society.
According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organizations, Education for Sustainable Development is a holistic and transformational approach that seeks to address the complex challenges of sustainability. It emphasizes the need for a systems thinking perspective, where students learn to understand the interconnectedness of different elements within a system.
To achieve this, it is crucial to develop different levels of systems understanding. This can include learning how to work in transdisciplinary teams, gaining a basic understanding of ecology, and engaging in value discussions.
By incorporating these components into education, we can foster a mindset that is equipped to tackle the interrelated and unpredictable problems of modern society.
Moreover, sustainability in education also emphasizes the importance of innovation and sustainability of educational practices themselves. It encourages teaching, learning, and assessment methods that empower students to become effective lifelong learners. Through sustainability education, students are equipped with the necessary knowledge, skills, and values to address the social, environmental, and economic challenges.
The identification of sustainability features begins with two types of existing systems: natural ecosystems and traditional agroecosystems.
Both have withstood the test of time in terms of long-term productivity, and each provides a unique knowledge foundation.
Traditional agroecosystems provide abundant examples of truly sustainable agricultural practises as well as insights into how social systems—cultural, political, and economic—fit into the sustainability equation.
Agroecological research can provide concepts, practises, and designs based on the information gathered from these systems that can be used to turn unsustainable industrial agroecosystems into sustainable ones.
Natural Ecosystems:
The one that follows are more productive in general, but significantly less diversified than the former. In addition, unlike natural systems, industrial agroecosystems are not self-sustaining. Their productivity can only be sustained with significant extra inputs of energy and materials from external, human-produced sources; otherwise, they rapidly decay to a far lower productive level. These two sorts of systems are on different extremes of a spectrum in every way.
The key to sustainability is to create an appropriate balance between the two—a system that mimics the structure and function of natural ecosystems while still producing a harvest for human use.
Because such a system is heavily managed by people for human purposes, it is not self-sustaining and must rely on natural processes to maintain its output.
Its resemblance to natural systems enables the system to maintain human appropriation of its biomass over the long term without huge subsidies of industrial culture energy and without negative impacts on the surrounding environment.
"the greater the structural and functional similarity of an agroecosystem to the natural ecosystems in its biogeographic region, the greater the likelihood that the agroecosystem will be sustainable."
If this principle holds true, then observable and measurable values for a variety of natural ecosystem processes, structures, and rates can provide threshold values, or benchmarks, that describe or delineate the ecological potential for agroecosystem design and management in a specific area. It is the responsibility of research to discover how near an agroecosystem must be to these benchmark values in order for it to be sustainable (Gliessman).
Traditional Agroecosystems:
Traditional agricultural practises and expertise continue to provide the foundation for most of the basic food production in much of the rural world today.
Traditional and indigenous production systems differ from industrial systems in that the former evolved primarily in times or places where inputs other than human labour and local resources were unavailable, or where alternatives to the energy- and technology-intensive human inputs common in much of today's industrial agriculture were discovered.
Traditional knowledge embodies experience gathered from previous generations, but it continues to evolve in the present as the biological and cultural settings of the people involved go through a continuous process of adaptation and change.
Traditional knowledge embodies experience gathered from previous generations, but it continues to evolve in the present as the biological and cultural settings of the people involved go through a continuous process of adaptation and change as well as modifications. The fact that they are still in use demonstrates a social and ecological stability that contemporary, mechanised systems should learn from.
Traditional agroecosystem studies may substantially aid in the establishment of environmentally sound management practises. Indeed, our understanding of environmental sustainability is mostly based on knowledge gained from such research.
Traditional agricultural environments-
Do not rely on purchased external inputs.
Use as many locally accessible and renewable materials as possible. Place a premium on nutrient recycling.
Have a positive or minimal negative impact on both the on-farm and off-farm environment; are adapted to or tolerant of local conditions rather than relying on massive environmental modification or control; and can take advantage of the full range of microenvironmental variation within the cropping system, farm, and region.
Maximise yield without jeopardising the system's long-term productive capability or people' ability to use its resources wisely.
Keep spatial and temporal variety and continuity.
Maintain biological and cultural variety.
Use native agricultural types and include natural flora and animals as much as possible.
Traditional agricultural practises cannot be transplanted directly into parts of the world where agriculture has already been "modernised," nor can industrial agriculture be changed perfectly to match the traditional mould. Nonetheless, ancient practises and agroecosystems may teach us a lot about how to create modern sustainable agroecosystems.
A sustainable system does not have to include all of the stated features, but it must be constructed in such a way that all of the functions of these characteristics are kept.
Traditional agroecosystems may also teach us a lot about the role of social systems in sustainability.
To be sustainable, the cultural and economic institutions in which its human actors are entrenched must support and encourage sustainable practises rather than putting demands on them.
The significance of this link becomes clear when formerly viable traditional systems experience modifications that render them unsustainable or ecologically damaging. The underlying cause in every situation is some form of social, cultural, or economic pressure.
Traditional farmers frequently reduce fallow times or expand their herds of grazing animals in response to increasing rents or other economic demands, and these changes cause soil erosion or a decline in soil fertility.
Traditional agroecosystems must be recognised as instances of sophisticated, applied ecological knowledge. Otherwise, agriculture's so-called modernization process will continue to erode the time-tested knowledge it embodies—information that should serve as a starting point for the transition to more sustainable agroecosystems of the future.
Sustainable System Learning
-By
Akhil Srinivas K H (KHAS).
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