Real world systems are complex, with feedback between the environment and the human realm. Almost all policy and management interventions have had unintended consequences, sometimes of unimaginable scale. Furthermore, policies often target symptoms and not causes, thus merely conceal the negative impacts while root causes perpetuate. How can we overcome this fallacy of managing complex systems?

The Root Causes Framework (RCF) provides a method for analyzing and examining change in complex systems in a way that distinguishes drivers, symptoms, and causes. Emanating from political ecology, the RCF emphasises linking scales from the local to the global, processes and their states, interactions, and feedback. Such analysis delivers a qualitative conceptual understanding of the system. The purpose of using RCF is to identify leverage points that can change system behavior with reduced chance of unintended consequences. Building on Foresters system theory, RCF often gives surprising insights and points at solutions that slip through the disciplinary perspectives of most analysts.

A successful example of applying the RCF is the loss and (local) revival of traditional orchard meadows in Southern Germany, which once dominated a biodiverse and culturally valued landscape. The loss of meadow landscapes was mainly attributed to economic pressures. Yet, RCF also reveals the break-down of knowledge and knowledge infrastructure, as well as regulatory challenges of reaching markets. Several case studies demonstrate how a revival of knowledge, in combination with innovative marketing initiatives, had successfully reversed the downward trend.

• Hammel, Kristine and T Arnold (2012a). Understanding the Loss of Traditional Agricultural Systems: A Case Study of Orchard Meadows in Germany. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development Vol 2 (4), 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2012.024.011, pp. 119–136
• Hammel, K. and T. Arnold (2012b). Formalizing conceptual modeling: An application to Orchard Meadows in Baden-Württemberg. International Environmental Modelling and Software Society (iEMSs) 2012, 6th Biennial Meeting, Leipzig, Germany. R. Seppelt, A.A. Voinov, S. Lange, D. Bankamp (Eds.) http://www.iemss.org/society/index.php/iemss-2012-proceedings