[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# AMESH: An Ecosystems Approach to Managing for Sustainability and Health

Waltner-Toews D, 2023, Journal of Systems Thinking 3(1):1-13 — Environment & Sustainability

Patterns: [Systems](https://dsrpevidence.org/pattern/systems), [Perspectives](https://dsrpevidence.org/pattern/perspectives)

## In short

Describes AMESH, a method for sustainable development that combines complex systems theory, Soft Systems Methodology and community engagement, tested in Nepal, Kenya, Canada and Peru.

## What they found (results)

Developed and tested by an international network since about 1990 — in Nepal, Kenya, Canada, and Peru.

## What they set out to do (purpose)

A chapter on AMESH, the Adaptive Methodology for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health: complex systems theory combined with Soft Systems Methodology and community-engagement practice.

## Abstract

Beginning in about 1990 and continuing into the present, an international network of researchers has developed and tested a methodology for integrating complex systems theories into sustainable development projects. Drawing on a theoretical understanding of complex systems and combining it with Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology and best practices of community engagement drawn from a wide variety of sources, we have developed a methodology that is theoretically sound and practically effective. AMESH, an Adaptive Methodology for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health, has emerged from, and been tested in, Nepal, Kenya, Canada, and Peru.

These researchers were not testing DSRP. The finding is theirs; the correspondence to DSRP is drawn by this site.

[Source](https://doi.org/10.54120/jost.0000023)