The Social Costs of Resilience: An Example from the Faroe Islands

When viewed at the level of social-ecological system, the Faroe Islands are a model of long-term resilience and sustainable resource management. But what have been the costs of this system-level success in terms of human well-being? In this chapter I focus on two key components of well-being—food and environmental security—during the transformative 12th and 13th centuries. Though faced with a series of significant environmental and political challenges, medieval-period Faroese society appears to have adequately maintained food and environmental security, due in large part to a number of legal restrictions on access to key natural resources. The social costs of doing so were not benign, however, as these policies, while effective as conservation measures, disproportionately excluded those with the least socio-economic power.