Pioneers break new grounds and leave an empty space when they move on. Crawford Stanley Holling is considered the father of resilience research and a pivotal figure in the development of the Beijer Institute, the Resilience Alliance and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Crawford, or "Buzz", a nickname given by his sister because she believed it suited his character better (he agreed), called his resilience work the "science of surprise".

He was a pioneer in efforts to understand complex systems, inspired by thinkers emerging at that time. Holling strongly emphasized that understanding, not knowledge in a narrow sense, is navigating the dynamic, connected, and evolving challenges of our rich, unequal, and beautiful world. His encouragement of creative, fun, experimental research that bridges science, practice and art has inspired the research culture at the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

From insects to adaptive management



Buzz Holling was born in 1930, and grew up in the forests of Northern Ontario where he developed a deep interest in the living world. An early interest in forest insects lead him to study insects, first at the University of Toronto and then the University of British Colombia. During his PhD (1957) he developed the first mathematical theory of predation. These concepts are now widely used to analyze predator-prey interactions.

In the sixties and seventies Holling extended his work using systems to understand diverse types of interactions among people and nature. He began to collaborate with experts outside of universities and research labs to understand land development, forest management, and pest management. It was from these experiences that Holling first began to formulate his ideas about resilience. This work continued in Vienna where Holling, first visited and then became director of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). There, he led and managed interdisciplinary teams that developed learning based approaches to understand interactions between people and nature.

Holling highlighted the importance of considering surprise, system reorganization, and learning when trying to understand social-ecological dynamics. These efforts lead to new ideas about the dynamic nature of resilience and the co-development of Adaptive Environmental Management and Assessment, a learning based approach to the management of complex environmental problems.