Environmental Management Revisited: Lessons From a Cybernetic Intervention in Colombia

Stafford Beer's Viable System Model offers a tool of great power with direct relevance to environmental problems. This article introduces the model and, through a recent application in the Colombian Environmental Sector, shows how this approach offers new possibilities to diagnose and deal with environmental problems of enormous complexity. It discusses the inadequacies of traditional approaches to environmental management, which tend to be restricted to the use of existing political systems. This example might serve as an inspiration for practitioners looking for new tools to progress towards more adaptive organizations in the environmental sector.