This book by Karl et al., "Restoring and Sustaining Lands Coordinating Science, Politics and Communities for Action", is a must read for those who are attempting to conduct policy-relevant research on sustainability of lands and water resources. It provides clear perspectives about the challenges that scientists face in addressing climate change and other complex societal issues. This is a book that should be recommended to students are interested in contributing to interdisciplinary and participatory research programs that address sustainable resources management. James Jones, Distinguished Professor, University of Florida, Department of Agriculture and Biological Engineering This book collects the first-person accounts of diverse practitioners who have taken action on what they know in efforts to manage ecosystems in harmony with social and economic systems. The outcomes of these empirical tests of knowledge - both the achievements and the disappointments - illuminate barriers between disciplines, agencies, and different kinds of expertise as well as paths for overcoming them in advancing common interests. For scientists in particular, this book is a valuable source of insight for rethinking their roles in society and revitalizing their sciences and service to society accordingly. -Ronald D. Brunner Professor Emeritus and Policy Scientist University of Colorado, Boulder Author (with Amanda H. Lynch), Adaptive Governance and Climate Change, and (with others) Adaptive Governance: Integrating Science, Policy, and Decision Making "Finally, we have a book that explains how science is irrelevant without people. It's people who decide when and how to use science, not scientists. This book gives us a roadmap for how to really solve complex problems. It involves hard work, and creating new relationships between scientists and the public that don't typically exist in our society." -John M. Hagan, Ph.D. President, Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences This book presents adaptive governance as a new policy frame. It is full of insights into how relationships between scientists, policy-makers, and stakeholders change as they try to manage natural resources and address complex problems like climate change. The reflections that are brought together in this book are a welcome tonic to anyone who has felt the potential and the frustrations of trying to work across the boundaries that separate disciplines and set science apart from society. -Maarten Hajer Director, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency Professor of Public Policy University of Amsterdam Author of Strong Stories. How the Dutch are Reinventing Spatial Planning The overall compilation of this book goes to the core of a problem of academic separation from the critical social issues of our day by conducting research only in disciplinary silos. These silos are important for developing foundational basic work, but the task of bringing that work to the world of practical relevance requires a multi-disciplinary approach and an engagement with practitioners and citizens that the norms of academia formally resist. This book provides just such a multi-disciplinary synthesis and engagement with the real world. -Andrew J. Hoffman Holcim (US) Professor of Sustainable Enterprise Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise University of Michigan Author of From Heresy to Dogma: An Institutional History of Corporate Environmentalism, Memo to the CEO: Climate Change, What's Your Business Strategy? (with John Woody), and editor of Oxford Handbook on Business and the Natural Environment (with Pratima Bansal) Restoring and Sustaining Lands-Coordinating Science, Politics and Communities for Action illustrates the frustrations and triumphs associated with trying to manage our lands in the 21st century with the vision and humanity called for by Thoreau and Leopold in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The editors and authors of this book urge better integration of science, politics and communities through collaborative problem solving and consensus building. They offer multiple examples of local and regional cooperative restoration efforts, while encouraging us to do better and to address the barriers that restrict the opportunities and capacities to do more. -Kirk Emerson, University of Arizona Former Director, U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution
