1.2.18—Human impacts on resilience

Human actions lower resilience when they shrink storages or biological diversity, leaving fewer reserves and alternative pathways after disturbance.

Trace action → reduced storage/diversity → larger proportional shock → slower recovery or tipping risk. Restoration can reverse the mechanism.

Deforestation removes biomass and seed stores and fragments habitat, so drought or fire has a larger effect than in a connected diverse forest.

Rebuilding diverse habitat and reserves restores alternative pathways; one species may not.

Human influence is not automatically resilience loss; identify the storage or diversity mechanism.