Reinette Biggs

Professor Reinette "Oonsie" Biggs is a South African sustainability scientist whose research focuses on food, water, and the benefits people receive from nature. Biggs is the co-director of the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition at Stellenbosch University, South Africa and a researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University in Sweden.

Quotes

• In one way, in Africa, we have an advantage because we're behind everyone else on the development trajectory." Now is the time to think more cleverly about different models for how poorer countries could develop in a completely different way that doesn't have such a high impact on the environment as has happened in most other places.

• The framework we're using assumes the planet, and human societies that live upon it, are complex and constantly evolving, so we need to continually learn about and adapt to these ongoing changes.

• People see certain things and draw conclusions that are actually valid for the data they have. But then somebody else goes to investigate, maybe at a different time or using a bit of a different approach, collects a different set of data, and they get a different answer.

• Once you engage the people who are managing a system, they can change the way they're thinking about it and actually influence the future, so it's very interactive. [1] Prof. Reinette Biggs Interview on Testing Mother Earth's Resilience