Diverse individuals are rethinking ways for people to restore and sustain natural ecosystems from which they draw their livelihoods. Working ecosystems must restored and sustained against a backdrop of directional environmental change, increasing environmental variability, and proliferating cross-scale linkages in an increasingly networked world. More empirical case studies of successes and failures in attempts to create social-ecological resilience are needed if we are to develop theory useful for guiding change in new situations. This Special Session will feature presentation of 3-4 case histories (15-20 minutes apiece), providing a basis for discussions of ideas and insights for guiding change in specific social-ecological systems. We have had exciting conversations with a number of individuals (ESA members and others) about their efforts to enhance local sustainability and resilience of forests, soils, rangeland, fisheries, and agricultural and urban ecosystems. Some efforts seek harvest regimes that are better aligned to natural rates and seasonal schedules of resource renewal processes. Some efforts would reconfigure cross-system exchanges of goods, capital, materials (including pollutants), organisms, or energy to better protect sustainability and resilience of both sources and sinks. Some efforts would convert processes once considered natural hazards (e.g. fire, floods) into opportunities for ecosystem rejuvenation. While we will focus on local cultures and ecosystems in our case histories, we will also consider long-distance relationships (“market transformations”, fair versus direct trade, financial investment and philanthropy), which require some rethinking for planetary stewardship.