Editing IPCC:AR6/SRCCL/Chapter-7 (section)

==== 7.3.4.1 Windows of opportunity ====

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Windows of opportunity are important learning moments wherein an event or disturbance in relation to land, climate, and food security triggers responsive social, political, policy change ( ''medium agreement'' ). Policies play an important role in windows of opportunity and are important in relation to managing risks of desertification, soil degradation, food insecurity, and supporting response options for SLM ( ''high agreement'' ) (Kivimaa and Kern 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r337|337]]</sup> ; Gupta et al. 2013b <sup>[[#fn:r338|338]]</sup> ; Cosens et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r339|339]]</sup> ; Darnhofer 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r340|340]]</sup> ; Duru et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r341|341]]</sup> ) (Chapter 6).

A wide range of events or disturbances may initiate windows of opportunity – ranging from climatic events and disasters, recognition of a state of land degradation, an ecological social or political crisis, and a triggered regulatory burden or opportunity. Recognition of a degraded system such as land degradation and desertification (Chapters 3 and 4) and associated ecosystem feedbacks, allows for strategies, response options and policies to address the degraded state (Nyström et al. 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r343|343]]</sup> ). Climate related disasters (flood, droughts, etc.) and crisis may trigger latent local adaptive capacities leading to systemic equitable improvement (McSweeney and Coomes 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r344|344]]</sup> ), or novel and innovative recombining of sources of experience and knowledge, allowing navigation to transformative social ecological transitions (Folke et al. 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r345|345]]</sup> ). The occurrence of a series of punctuated crises such as floods or droughts, qualify as windows of opportunity when they enhance society’s capacity to adapt over the long term (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r346|346]]</sup> ). A disturbance from an ecological, social, or political crisis may be sufficient to trigger the emergence of new approaches to governance wherein there is a change in the rules of the social world such as informal agreements surrounding human activities or formal rules of public policies (Olsson et al. 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r347|347]]</sup> ; Biggs et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r348|348]]</sup> ) (Section 7.6). A combination of socio-ecological changes may provide windows of opportunity for a socio-technical niche to be adopted on a greater scale, transforming practices towards SLM such as biodiversity-based agriculture (Darnhofer 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r349|349]]</sup> ; Duru et al. 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r350|350]]</sup> ).

Policy may also create windows of opportunity. A disturbance may cause inconvenience, including high costs of compliance with environmental regulations, thereby initiating a change of behaviour (Cosens et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r351|351]]</sup> ). In a similar vein, multiple regulatory requirements existing at the time of a disturbance may result in emergent processes and novel solutions in order to correct for piecemeal regulatory compliance (Cosens et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r352|352]]</sup> ). Lastly, windows of opportunity can be created by a policy mix or portfolio that provides for creative destruction of old social processes and there by encourages new innovative solutions (Kivimaa et al. 2017b <sup>[[#fn:r353|353]]</sup> ) (Section 7.4.8).

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