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Climate change and biodiversity loss trigger policies targeting and impacting local communities worldwide. However, research and policy implementation often fail to sufficiently consider and involve them. Therefore, we present the results of a collective self-assessment exercise for eight case studies of communications regarding climate change or biodiversity loss between project teams and local communities. We develop eight indicators of good stakeholder communication, reflecting the scope of Verran (2002)'s concept of postcolonial moments as a communicative utopia. We demonstrate that applying our indicators enhances communication, although we discover a divergence between timing, complexity, and (introspective) effort. Three cases qualify for postcolonial moments , but scrutinising power relations and genuine knowledge co-production remain rare. While we verify the potency of various instruments for deconstructing science, their sophistication cannot substitute trust-building and epistemic/transdisciplinary awareness. Lastly, we consider that reforming inadequate funding policies helps improving the work in and with local communities.

Human-centred design (HCD) approaches are adopted to develop digital agriculture interventions inclusively and responsibly. Whether these approaches indeed lead to responsible designs remains unclear, especially for low-income countries. Using a Rwandan case-study, we contribute to debates on inclusive, participatory and responsible design by developing a framework for operationalising HCD and responsible innovation in practice and studying the process of designing a digital agriculture intervention for banana disease management. The four dimensions (inclusion, anticipation, reflexivity, responsiveness) of responsible innovation and our own framework of digital rights served as analytical lenses. Findings show that power relations and digital capacity negatively affect user inclusivity in design. The context in which HCD is deployed hinders anticipation, reflexivity and responsiveness, resulting in design decisions that do not fully respect digital rights and thus in potentially irresponsible digital technologies. Broader, long-term consequences of digital technologies should be a central consideration in design processes, while responsible innovation theory needs to become cognizant of the complex realities in which digital innovations emerge.

License information: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This research was partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research BMBF (FoReSee, grant no. 01LA1811B, Economics of the Climate Change II programme; COMTESS, grant no. 01LL0911A-G, Sustainable Land Management programme; Carbiocial, grant no. 01LL0902F, Sustainable Land Management programme, ECAS-BALTIC, grant no. 03F0860G, Küno Küstenforschung Nordsee / Ostsee), the European Commission (DESIRE, project number 561638-EPP-1-2015-1-JO-EPP KA2-CBHE-JP, grant agreement number: 2012-3324/001-001), the Flemish Interuniversity Council – University Development Cooperation VLIR-UOS (North South South Cooperation Programme ZIUS2015VOA3106), the Belgian Directorate-General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid (CEBioS programme), the Special Research Fund of Hasselt University (BOF20TT06), the Belgian Science Policy BELSPO (EVAMAB of CEBioS programme), the Luc Hoffmann Institute, and the German Research Foundation DFG (Germany's Excellence Strategy – EXC 2037 'CLICCS - Climate, Climatic Change, and Society', project no 390683824).

Climate change and biodiversity loss trigger policies worldwide, many of which target or impact local communities. Although research, international development, and policy implementation (and, thus, success in fighting both threats) require thoughtful consideration and communication of the underlying concepts, field work encounters a cascade of tangible barriers. Technoscientific representations of quantifiable causes and effects often remain alien to local perspectives, and failure to involve communities constantly and genuinely creates gaps that may ultimately prevent research and policy success. Therefore, in this article, we present the results of a collective self-assessment exercise for a panel of eight case studies (covering four continents) of communications between project teams and local communities within the context of climate change or biodiversity loss. Our analysis develops eight indicators of good stakeholder communication, which we construct from the literature, in addition to Verran (2002) 's concept of postcolonial moments as a communicative utopia. Our study contributes to the (analytical) understanding of such communications, while also providing tangible insights for field work and policy recommendations. We demonstrate that applying our indicators can foster a more successful communication, although we find an apparent divergence between timing, complexity, and (introspective) effort of the project teams. While three case studies qualify for postcolonial moments, our findings show that especially the scrutiny of power relations and genuine knowledge co-production are still rare. We verify the potency of various instruments for deconstructing science; however, we also show that their sophistication cannot substitute other crucial factors. Instead, simple deconstruction efforts may suffice, while trust-building, proper time management, and an advanced awareness of the scientists are crucial. Lastly, we consider that reforming rigid and inadequate funding policies will help overcome significant barriers and improve the work in and with local communities.

Sustainability problems call for collaborative solution finding. Lessons learnt from the transdisciplinary designs of three projects in the Global South include the need for a prephase to build balanced ownership, institutionalised and equal partnerships, and diversified approaches.Stakeholder (SH) involvement is a major and ever-challenging aspect of transdisciplinary research (TDR). Reflecting on three land management research projects (Carbiocial, SuLaMa, TFO) in a North-South setting, we present their individual approaches for SH involvement and discuss which SH group was involved, when and why. We identify patterns and share lessons learnt that can serve to design TDR projects in general and in a North-South context specifically. Close collaboration with strategic SHs for project conceptualisation and implementation is essential to build ownership and link the project to other SHs. However, structures based on equal partnerships are required. Diversified methods adapted to the specific regional context enable target-oriented involvement during research, but unexpected dynamics and diverging interests must be kept in mind. Reflections on the processes of SH involvement in TDR project teams are vital for easing power imbalances and intercultural misunderstandings.

Soil carbon stocks of 29 plots along a transect through tropical Brazil showed only minor soil carbon losses after land use shift, although replacement of forest-derived carbon was detectable in subsoil and topsoil, indicating that new equilibria in soil carbon stocks might not have been reached after deforestation. The proportion of carbon lost from soils was negligible as compared to the emissions from biomass reduction by deforestation itself. Industrial agriculture had the best ratio between food production and carbon loss, pointing toward a potential reduction of deforestation pressure by further agricultural intensification, which is not achieved in practice due to institutional obstacles and uneven benefit sharing. In contrast, farmers at the agricultural frontier were identified as change agents if alternative sustainable land uses, taking advantage of biodiversity-related ecosystem services, are fostered by better access to credit lines and extension management. Thus, constraining the climate change debate in agriculture to sole management of carbon stock changes in soil is misleading and draws the attention from the most urgent problems: deforestation caused by wrong incentives.

This book is a rich ethnographic and historic account of the juridification of prior consultation in Brazil. In her case study on the national regulation of ILO Convention 169, Charlotte Schumann critically examines the dynamic conflicts over competence and interpretation of this paramount safeguard mechanism for indigenous self-determination. The administrative center Brasília becomes the stage for a fierce struggle between state actors, social movements and experts over the limits of participation, the reification of cultural difference, and ways to vernacularize international human rights - leading to an intriguing discussion that interweaves law, anthropology and multiculturalist politics.

According to recent reports on deforestation control, Brazil’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are successful. This is attributed to a combination of command-and-control style of public regulation and civil society pressure. Looking beyond decreasing deforestation rates reveals a different picture for the future of GHG optimized land use in Brazil. Command-andcontrol regulation seems to work as long as prohibitive measures against deforestation are concerned. However, as soon as tailormade policies for complex issues such as land-use planning are required, the outcomes are ambiguous. Comparing the origins, the actors and the perspectives of three different cases of resource governance in Southern Amazonia, we show that the major challenges of regulation attempts are the lack of transparency and the appropriation of state agencies by powerful groups. Due to institutional weakness, the various regulation efforts fail to consider the system links needed for effective implementation. To conclude, we provide suggestions to possibly overcome the problems through innovative forms of governance.