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We examine social-environmental justice in forest governance by asking who is problematized as drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. We adapt Bacchi’s “What is the problem represented to be” approach to the community forest (CAF) model in Burkina Faso and the Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) in Vietnam and examine the implementation of these policies in specific sites through disaggregated focus group discussions (men, women, youth, ethnic minorities). We delve into the discursive, lived and subjectification effects of the policies’ problematizations, highlighting tensions and contestations relating to forest access and benefits. For both countries, what is left unproblematized in the implicit policy focus on the local is a “communal fix” of indigeneity tied to idealized and collective governance of fixed areas of land and exclusionary processes for those that do not fit the ideal. We argue that market-oriented approach in policies such as CAF and PFES absent of the wider underpinnings of the political and historical forest will only exacerbate social-environmental injustices.

Achieving sustainability in the Anthropocene requires radical changes to how human societies operate. The Seeds of Good Anthropocenes (SOGA) project has identified a diverse set of existing initiatives, called “seeds,” that have the potential to catalyze transformations toward more sustainable pathways. However, the empirical investigation of factors and conditions that enable successful sustainability transformations across multiple cases has been scarce. Building on a review of existing theoretical and empirical research, we developed a theoretical framework for assessing three features identified as important to transformative potential of innovative social-ecological initiatives: (1) learning practices, (2) empowerment, and (3) networking. We applied this framework to a set of African-led and Africa-related initiatives that we selected from the SOGA database that were divided into initiatives with more or less transformative potential. We coded the presence or absence of features relating to the theoretical framework using secondary data, and then compared the initiatives using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). This analysis revealed that of the three features tested, Networking emerged as the most important feature for transformative potential when compared amongst cases. By developing and testing a framework for the comparison of cases we provide a basis for future comparative work to further identify and test properties of cases that enable transformation.

Indigenous peoples are key actors for environmental management because they hold valuable indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) for the sustainable stewardship of nature. However, the consideration of ILK in environmental management is still limited. We explore how environmental government institutions in Colombia have involved indigenous communities in 2212 environmental management projects between 2004 and 2015. Only 1% of these projects involved indigenous peoples as main actors. We applied the Leverage Points (LP) perspective in a content analysis to identify ‘where’ and ‘how’ these projects promote transformative changes within indigenous territories. Moreover, we investigated the interactions between projects targeting shallow and deep LP using cluster analysis. Our results show that these projects mainly seek to improve the well-being of indigenous peoples and consider ILK in their interventions, which suggests changes in deep LP. Additionally, these projects usually combined interventions targeting both shallow and deep LP while using ILK to improve environmental management practices (e.g., Life Plans) and developing participatory land-use planning in the indigenous territories. We argue that the involvement of ILK in environmental management can lead to stronger human–nature connectedness and thus to more successful conservation policies. However, this involvement is still at an early stage in Colombia.

• We compare landscape metrics with participatory mapping to explore mismatches on water ecosystem services. • We integrate random forest and GWR techniques to associate geographical features with specific ecosystem services. • Results stress visible geography's role in shaping perception of ecosystem services vs. imperceptible indicators. • We show the potential of integrating metrics and participatory data for exploring ecological perceptions. • We emphasize the need of a shared ecological understanding for achieving more effective environmental policies. Landscapes have typically been produced by varied, diverse, and long-term interactions between people and nature. However, most landscape planning and ecosystem service mapping approaches focus on the biophysical aspects of landscapes rather the social. Spatial representations of people's perceptions, mental models, and local knowledge of ecosystem services can be created using participatory mapping. This study uses participatory mapping to identify how peoples' perceptions of provisioning, regulating and cultural ecosystem service supply areas coincide or mismatch with the landscapes features of two Mediterranean river basin areas in north-eastern Catalonia, Spain. We found that the random forest and geographically weighted regression techniques are able to strongly associate landscape features with stakeholders' perceptions of ecosystem supply areas. These results demonstrate that the stakeholders associate various geographic elements with different types of ecosystem service supply areas. Visible geographical features, such as a reservoir, mountains, wetlands, showed great importance in the perception of supply areas of ecosystem services, compared to ecological or biophysical indicators, when mapping and spatially associating certain benefits to ecosystem services supply areas. These findings reveal that, often, the ecological processes and dynamics of functioning of ecosystems are invisible and not fully understood. We argue that integrating these aspects into participatory landscape planning, policies and practice can make the invisible visible and, consequently, increase the understanding for a more targeted and effective management. This could allow stakeholders to better understand the ecological processes behind the visible geographic features of the landscape, fostering a shared knowledge and better environmental management outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scenario development has been recognized as a potential method to explore future change and stimulate a reflective process that can contribute to more informed decision-making. The assessment process under IPBES (the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) has however shown that the current predominantly biophysical and economic models and scenario processes for exploring the future of biodiversity, ecosystem services and their contributions to human wellbeing are insufficient to capture the complexity and context-specific nature of the problems facing these sectors. Several important challenges have been identified that require a more in-depth analysis of where more imaginative scenario efforts can be undertaken to address this gap. In this paper, we identify six key characteristics necessary for scenario processes: adaptability across diverse contexts, inclusion of diverse knowledge and value systems, legitimate stakeholder engagement that foregrounds the role of power and politics, an ability to grapple with uncertainty, individual and collective thinking mechanisms and relevance to policy making. We compared four cases of imaginative, arts-based scenario processes that each offer aspects of meeting these criteria. These approaches emphasise the importance of engaging the imagination of those involved in a process and harnessing it as a tool for identifying and conceptualising more transformative future trajectories. Drawing on the existing literature, we argue that there is value in fostering more inclusive and creative participatory processes that acknowledge the importance of understanding multiple value systems and relationships in order to reimagine a more inclusive and just future. Based on this, we reflect on future research to understand the transformative role that imagination can play in altering and enhancing knowledge-making for global assessments, including IPBES. We conclude that creative scenario co-development processes that promote imagination and create an opening for more empathetic responses should be considered as complementary tools within the suite of methodologies used for future IPBES scenario development.