Community resilience and land degradation in forest and shrubland socio-ecological systems: evidence from Gorgoglione, Basilicata, Italy

Assessing the resilience of communities is assuming greater importance at a time of global economicupheaval, climatic and socio-demographic changes. The past 10–15 years have seen a significant increasein the number of studies addressing resilience issues at community level from a variety of perspectives,and although the resilience of communities in dealing with disturbance feature strongly in these stud-ies, less work appears to have been undertaken at the interface between community resilience and landdegradation. In addition, little attention has been paid to land degradation, desertification risk and com-munity resilience at the forest–community interface, despite the fact that forest ecosystems representone of the most important terrestrial biomes in terms of the ecosystem services and socio-economicbenefits that they provide. Building on existing community resilience literature which highlights theimportance of various socio-economic and political drivers for understanding community resilience, thispaper analyses how economic, political, institutional, social, cultural and natural factors at communitylevel affect the ability of communities to adapt and adjust decision-making pathways towards resilience.The paper will focus on the municipality of Gorgoglione (Basilicata, Italy), a typical Mediterranean forestand shrubland socio-ecological system characterised by a mixture of agricultural and forest landscapesprone to land degradation issues linked to both anthropogenic (deforestation, overgrazing, forest fires)and natural (soil erosion, droughts, climate aridity) causes. A mixed-method approach is used, drawingon quantitative and qualitative data across spatial levels and temporal scales to examine the complexinterrelationships between community resilience, forest ecosystems and land degradation.