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The literature on climate exposures and human migration has focused largely on assessing short-term responses to temperature and precipitation shocks. In this paper, we suggest that this common coping strategies model can be extended to account for mechanisms that link environmental conditions to migration behavior over longer periods of time. We argue that early-life climate exposures may affect the likelihood of migration from childhood through early adulthood by influencing parental migration, community migration networks, human capital development, and decisions about household resource allocation, all of which are correlates of geographic mobility. After developing this conceptual framework, we evaluate the corresponding hypotheses using a big data approach, analyzing 20 million individual georeferenced records from 81 censuses implemented across 31 countries in tropical Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. For each world region, we estimate regression models that predict lifetime migration (a change in residence between birth and ages 30-39) as a function of temperature and precipitation anomalies in early life, defined as the year prior to birth through age four. Results suggest that early-life climate is systematically associated with changes in the probability of lifetime migration in most regions of the tropics, with the largest effects observed in sub-Saharan Africa. In East and Southern Africa, the effects of temperature shocks vary by sex and educational attainment and in a manner that suggests women and those of lower socioeconomic status are most vulnerable. Finally, we compare our main results with models using alternative measures of climate exposures. This comparison suggests climate exposures during the prenatal period and first few years of life are particularly (but not exclusively) salient for lifetime migration, which is most consistent with the hypothesized human capital mechanism.

The concept of edible landscapes seeks to combine a participatory approach to food production with wider concerns about well-designed, sustainable human-landscape relationships. Despite its decade-long history and seeming potential for holistically addressing multiple intertwined socio-ecological crises, the concept has received much less attention than related ideas such as green infrastructure or nature-based solutions. We conducted a systematic, multilingual review of 79 studies to understand how edible landscapes are defined, what their characteristics are, what trends exist in the literature, and how edible landscapes can be situated in the broader context of food production. Findings suggest that no clear definition of the term ‘edible landscape’ currently exists, although the implicit consensus is that edible landscapes feature food production as well as an aesthetic contribution. The literature holds high expectations but provides only limited empirical evidence for benefits. Edible landscape frames a unique conceptual space, which we visualize by placing it in relation with related concepts. We then propose two concise, genus-differentia definitions as a basis for academic debate, one of which expands the concept to include multispecies agency in designing landscapes. We conclude with a call for more empirical as well as theory-focused research to facilitate edible landscapes’ contributions to more sustainable human-nature relationships.

The COVID-19 pandemic and response has significantly disrupted fishery supply chains, creating shortages of essential foods and constraining livelihoods globally. Small-scale fisheries (SSFs) are responding to the pandemic in a variety of ways. Together, disruptions from and responses to COVID-19 illuminate existing vulnerabilities in the fish distribution paradigm and possible means of reducing system and actor sensitivity and exposure and increasing adaptive capacity. Integrating concepts from literature on supply chain disruptions, social-ecological systems, human wellbeing, vulnerability, and SSFs, we synthesize preliminary lessons from six case studies from Indonesia, the Philippines, Peru, Canada, and the United States. The SSF supply chains examined employ different distribution strategies and operate in different geographic, political, social, economic, and cultural contexts. Specifically, we ask (a) how resilient have different SSF supply chains been to COVID-19 impacts; (b) what do these initial outcomes indicate about the role of distribution strategies in determining the vulnerability of SSF supply chains to macroeconomic shocks; and (c) what key factors have shaped this vulnerability? Based on our findings, systemic changes that may reduce SSF vulnerability to future macroeconomic shocks include: diversification of distribution strategies, livelihoods, and products; development of local and domestic markets and distribution channels; reduced reliance on international markets; establishment of effective communication channels; and preparation for providing aid to directly assist supply chains and support consumer purchasing power.

The expert group on scenarios and models of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services initiated the development of the Nature Futures Framework for developing scenarios of positive futures for nature, to help inform assessments of policy options. This new scenarios and modelling Framework seeks to open up diversity and plurality of perspectives by differentiating three main value perspectives on nature – Nature for Nature (intrinsic values of nature), Nature for Society (instrumental values) and Nature as Culture (relational values). This paper describes how the Nature Futures Framework can be applied in modelling to support policy processes by identifying key interventions for change in realizing a diversity of desirable futures. First, the paper introduces and elaborates on key building blocks of the framework for developing qualitative scenarios and translating them into quantitative scenarios: i) multiple value perspectives on nature and the Nature Futures frontier representing diverse preferences, ii) incorporating mutual and key feedbacks of social-ecological systems in Nature Futures scenarios, and iii) indicators describing the evolution of social-ecological systems with complementary knowledge and data. This paper then presents three possible application approaches to modelling Nature Futures scenarios to support the i) review, ii) implementation and iii) design phases of policy processes. The main objective of this paper is to facilitate the integration of the relational values of nature in models, through improved indicators and other forms of evidence, and to strengthen modelled linkages across biodiversity, ecosystems, nature’s contributions to people, and quality of life to identify science- and knowledge-based interventions and to enhance ecological understanding for achieving sustainable futures. The paper aims at stimulating the development of new scenarios and models based on this new framework by a wide community of modelers, and the testing and possible further development of the framework, particularly in the context of future IPBES assessments.

Investigating seasonal variation in health and mortality helps understand disease dynamics and environmental health exposures. Using four available rounds of India's Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), this paper examines seasonality in infant mortality in India. I use information on the birth month-year, survival status within the first year of life, and age (in months) at death (if the infant died) of more than 330,000 children born between 1989 and 2014 to estimate period mortality rates between ages 0 and 1 for each calendar month. Relative to the spring months, infant mortality is higher in the summer, monsoon, and winter months. If the mortality conditions in the spring months were prevalent throughout the year, would have been less by 10.8 deaths per 1,000 infant alive per year in early 1990s and 4.1 deaths per 1,000 per year in the mid-2010s. Seasonal variation in infant mortality is higher among children born in less wealthy households, among children of less educated mothers, in rural areas, and in poorer regions. Although seasonality in infant mortality has attenuated over-time, seasonal variation in the early-childhood disease environment remains a concern, particularly in rural areas. These results highlight the multiple environmental health threats that infants in India face, and the limited period within a year when these threats are less salient.

This codebook was developed through an iterative process (defining and then testing and further refining the definitions and coding procedures) as described by multiple guides (Ratajczyk et al. 2016, Tschan et al. 2018). This codebook is a product of a larger research project with Co-PIs Marco A. Janssen, and Allen Lee, funded by the National Science Foundation: Psychosocial, motivational, and cooperative effects of communication, enforcement, and participatory decision making in resource dilemmas. (2017-2022). National Science Foundation (NSF): Decision, Risk & Management Sciences (Award #1658608) This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1658608. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

This paper is part of the conference proceedings of the Humanities for STEM Symposium. This symposium was the culminating event of the research collaborative group Humanities for STEM: Using Archives to Bridge the Two Cultures Divide. The research collaborative was sponsored by a two-year grant (2016-2018) from the New York University Center for the Humanities. The group, which included teaching faculty, librarians, archivists, and graduate students from the New York/New Jersey area, sought to examine how the study of primary sources, archival research, and associated methodologies of the humanities can be used to enhance the understanding of science (including medicine), technology, engineering, and mathematics. For more information about the research collaborative, please see our Wordpress site: https://wp.nyu.edu/archives_collaborative/about-us/In May 2017, the research collaborative issued a call for papers for the symposium. The CFP encouraged papers to focus on one of three topics: STEM general education, innovation in STEM, or ethics in STEM archives. For the full CFP, follow this link: https://wp.nyu.edu/archives_collaborative/call-for-papers-2018-symposium/. Submitted abstracts were reviewed by the research collaborative in September 2017 and those which adequately addressed the CFP were accepted. The accepted papers were peer-reviewed by the research collaborative members and feedback was given before the final papers were submitted. This review process was not blind. The Humanities for STEM Symposium was held on April 6-7, 2018 in Brooklyn, NY. The final papers were uploaded to the OSF in June 2018.

Spatial context effects are a topic in many scientific disciplines. This paper examines which conceptual steps are necessary for determining the extension, or the appropriate scale, of relevant spatial environments when contexts can be analytically disaggregated into context elements. Adequate models of scale need to specify not only the distance-dependent relevance of context elements but also their distribution and an adequate combination. In this way, it becomes possible to understand why non-monotonic patterns in scale-related context effects have been repeatedly found in spite of common assumptions of distance decay in relevance. In many cases, a distance-related maximum of (aggregate) context relevance can be expected, so that there is an “optimal” range for the measurement of context effects. It is also important to distinguish between applications in two- and three-dimensional space. This general model helps to specify the steps necessary for the determination of spatial context patterns and to identify unrealistic assumptions.

Understanding environmental politics is crucial for sustainability transitions. We study the transition politics of the shift to a circular economy in the German packaging sector, particularly the curious case of the 2019 German Packaging Act. While the policy was born out of the unanimous wish for radical regulatory change, all actors evaluate the outcome as incremental. Following the Discursive Agency Approach and drawing upon actor interviews and documents, we show that actors’ perceived fears of radical changes are critical for transition politics. This fear created a lock-in of two narratives, proposing conflicting organizational designs of packaging waste management. While the narrative lock-in was resolved by trading radical for incremental change, it left many conflicts and challenges unresolved. Our findings suggest that actors’ fears not only prevent radical regulatory change but also create incremental change that may intensify unresolved conflicts and, thus, further weaken the actors’ capacities for future transition politics.

The tourism industry contributes eight percent to global carbon emissions, directly and indirectly. Indirect carbon emissions are often neglected because they are difficult to calculate. The traditional approach to calculating indirect emissions – Life Cycle Assessment – is expensive and requires an expert data analyst. We introduce an alternative approach, the Environmentally Extended Input-Output Analysis. We show how this approach – currently used at macro-level to estimate carbon emissions at national or regional level – can be applied to the business level using carbon emissions generated by one hotel room clean as an example. Our comparative analysis shows that Environmentally Extended Input-Output Analysis leads to similar results as Life Cycle Assessment, while being substantially cheaper and more user-friendly. Environmentally Extended Input-Output Analysis, we conclude, enables tourism businesses to estimate the indirect carbon emissions of their operations, which is the key to identifying target areas for improvement.

Global commitments to protected area expansion should prioritize opportunities to protect climate refugia and ecosystems which store high levels of irrecoverable carbon, as key components of an effective response to biodiversity loss and climate change. The United States and Canada are responsible for one‐sixth of global greenhouse gas emissions but hold extensive natural ecosystems that store globally significant above‐ and below‐ground carbon. Canada has initiated a process of protected area network expansion in concert with efforts at reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, and acknowledged nature‐based solutions as a key aspect of climate change mitigation. The US, although not a party to global biodiversity conventions, has recently committed to protecting 30% of its extent by 2030 and achieving the UNFCCC Paris Agreement's mitigation targets. The opportunities afforded by these dual biodiversity conservation and climate commitments require coordinated national and regional policies to ensure that new protected areas maximize biodiversity‐focused adaptation and nature‐based mitigation opportunities. We address how global commitments can best inform national policy initiatives which build on existing agency mandates for regional planning and species conservation. Previous analyses of global conservation priorities under climate change have been tenuously linked to policy contexts of individual nations and have lacked information on refugia due to limitations of globally available datasets. Comparison and synthesis of predictions from a range of recently developed refugia metrics allow such data to inform planning despite substantial uncertainty arising from contrasting model assumptions and inputs. A case study for endangered species planning for old‐forest‐associated species in the US Pacific Northwest demonstrates how regional planning can be nested hierarchically within national biodiversity‐focused adaptation and nature‐based mitigation strategies which integrate refugia, connectivity, and ecosystem carbon metrics to holistically evaluate the role of different land designations and where carbon mitigation and protection of biodiversity's resilience to climate change can be aligned., Global and national commitments to protected area expansion should prioritize protection of climate refugia and ecosystems which store high levels of irrecoverable carbon, as key components of effective response to biodiversity loss and climate change. The US and Canada have committed to protecting 30% of their respective lands and waters by 2030 and achieving ambitious carbon mitigation targets. We describe how these countries' regional conservation efforts can be coordinated within national strategies which use recently‐developed metrics to identify where carbon mitigation and protection of biodiversity's resilience to climate change can be aligned.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognise the importance of action across all scales to achieve a sustainable future. To contribute to overall national- and global-scale SDG achievement, local communities need to focus on a locally-relevant subset of goals and understand potential future pathways for key drivers which influence local sustainability. We developed a participatory method to co-create local socioeconomic pathways by downscaling the SDGs and driving forces of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) via a local case study in southern Australia through contextual analysis and community engagement. We linked the SSPs and SDGs by identifying driving forces and describing how they affect the achievement of local SDGs. We co-created six local socioeconomic pathways with the local community which track towards futures with different levels of fulfilment of the SDGs and each encompasses a narrative storyline incorporating locally-specific ideas from the community. We tested and validated the local pathways with the community. This method extends the SSPs in two dimensions–into the broader field of sustainability via the SDGs, and by recontextualizing them at the local scale. The local socioeconomic pathways can contribute to achieving local sustainability goals from the bottom up in alignment with global initiatives. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s11625-021-00921-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Which institutional features do Latin American elites favor for local climate change policies? Climate change mitigation requires active local-level implementation, but it remains unclear which institutional arrangements maximize support for environmental rules. In this paper, we run a conjoint experiment with elite members of 10 Latin American countries and ask respondents to evaluate institutional designs drawn from a pool of 5,500 possible local climate governance arrangements. We find that Latin American elites prefer international organizations to formulate climate policies, support imposing increasing fines on violators, and favor renewing agreements every 5 years. We also find that elites support both international institutions and local courts to mediate conflicts, but they distrust non-governmental organizations and reject informal norms as a means of conflict resolution. Our results identify possible challenges in crafting local climate mitigation policies and offer new insights about how to integrate local and international levels in environmental agreements.

Herding can be characterized as a coordination game with two strategies for minimising risk: increase herd size (livestock quantity) or increase livestock body mass (livestock quality). In this paper I demonstrate that the selection of herd maximisation as a risk management strategy in the Northern parts of Norway has been influenced by a history of intra-group competition exacerbating herder conflict and lack of trust. In the South herder-farmer conflicts have increased herder coordination and trust, resulting in the selection of increasing livestock quality as the dominant risk management strategy.

Legal hunting of highly threatened species – and especially the recreational practice of ‘trophy hunting’ – is controversial with selected ethical objections being increasingly voiced. Less attention has been paid to how hunting (even of threatened species) can be useful as a conservation tool, and likely outcomes if this was stopped. As case studies, we examine the regulated legal hunting in South Africa and Namibia of two African rhino species. Counter-intuitively, removing a small number of specific males can enhance population demography and genetic diversity, encourage range expansion, and generate meaningful socio-economic benefits to help fund effective conservation (facilitated by appropriate local institutional arrangements). Legal hunting of these species has been sustainable, as very small proportions of the populations of both species are hunted each year, and numbers of both today are higher in these countries than when controlled recreational hunting began. Terminating this management option and funding source could have negative consequences at a time when rhinos are being increasingly viewed as liabilities and COVID-19 has significantly impacted revenue generation for wildlife areas. Provided that there is appropriate governance and management, conservation of certain highly threatened species can be supported by cautiously selective and limited legal hunting.

Low public concern about anthropogenic climate change (ACC) – due in part to distrust toward the global scientific community – may decrease demand for policies aimed at mitigating and adapting to the deleterious effects of climate change. Encouragingly, though, recent public opinion research suggests that experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic has elevated trust in scientific expertise worldwide. Consequently, amid the suffering associated with global pandemic, one “silver lining” might be that trust in the scientific community attributable to COVID-19 pandemic response is spilling over to increase public acceptance of other contentious aspects of scientific consensus: such as the reality of ACC. We explore this possibility by turning to globally-representative survey data from 111 countries (N = 119,088) conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. We show that trust medical experts’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with increased acceptance of ACC, worldwide. These findings hold even when accounting for individuals’ broader trust in the scientific community, and therefore do not appear to be confounded by more-general orientations toward science. Problematically, though, we also show that effect of trust in medical professionals is strongest in countries experiencing the most positive change in attitudes toward the scientific community, which we demonstrate (via multivariate country-level analyses) tend to be disproportionately wealthy, and perhaps less likely to bear the deleterious and unequal effects of ACC. We conclude by discussing how this work helps elucidate the role of pandemic psychology on “post-pandemic life,” and discuss the potentially-far-reaching benefits of improving trust in medical institutions in the developing world.

The Vietnamese fisheries sector, including both marine fisheries and aquaculture, has made spectacular progress in recent years, becoming one of the top seafood producing and exporting countries in the world. Looking forward, development goals of this sector must address challenges associated with climate change, including changing distribution of commercially important marine species such as tuna and disruptions to land-based aquaculture production systems. This study investigates the likely impacts of climate change on Vietnam’s fisheries sector by exploring plausible future scenarios for four key commodities representing capture fisheries (tuna), freshwater aquaculture (pangasius catfish and tilapia), and brackish water aquaculture (shrimp). The extent of impact varies, but climate change represents a potentially significant threat to sustainable production in each production system. Producers, policy makers, and other stakeholders need to plan for and adapt to climate change to ensure the sustainable development of Vietnam’s fisheries sector. This study uses a foresight scenario analysis using a qualitative scenario approach as the starting point for additional modeling of climate change impacts.

The global aspiration to mitigate climate change puts substantial pressure on the tourism sector – one of the most polluting industries – to operate in more sustainable ways. This study reviews intervention experiments in tourism and hospitality aimed at making tourist behaviour more sustainable. The analysis of 53 field experiments reveals the most promising intervention strategies. The resulting knowledge map highlights that past intervention studies were limited to only a small number of relevant target behaviours and intervention types, pointing to many unexplored areas that require urgent attention in future.

Climate change projections are central to fisheries and aquatic conservation research, and to planning for a warming world. Such projections include assumptions about future emissions pathways and climate-system sensitivity to emissions. Fisheries and aquatic conservation research typically uses emissions scenarios created for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, recent climate research and global development trends have significantly changed our understanding of the ranges of plausible emissions pathways to 2100 and climate sensitivities. Here, we provide a concise review of these updates to our understanding of climate futures, and we make recommendations for best-practice use of climate change scenarios in fisheries and aquatic conservation research. Although emissions pathways are subject to deep uncertainty, recent research suggests that emissions scenarios producing a range of approximately 3.4-4.5W/m2 radiative forcing by 2100 might be most plausible. With median climate sensitivities, this corresponds to approximately 2-3 degrees C global warming by 2100. Climate-sensitivity uncertainties expand this range to approximately 1.5-4 degrees C. In terms of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), radiative forcing outcomes mostly fall between SSP2-3.4 and SSP2-4.5/RCP4.5, though higher and lower emissions scenarios (e.g., RCP2.6 and RCP6.0) might be plausible and should be explored in research. However, we argue that uses of the highest-emission scenarios (RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5, SSP3-7.0)—which currently predominate the literature—should come with clearly articulated rationales and appropriate caveats to ensure results are not misinterpreted by scholars, policymakers, and media.

When striving to motivate support for conservation, there is often a bias in focus and funding for some species over others (such as flagship species, because they are attractive and recognisable to the public). However, species’ names can also influence peoples’ attitudes and feelings towards them, and celebrity endorsement can lead to increased audience attention to environmental campaigns. This research aims to explore whether naming a species after a celebrity can increase the amount of attention it receives on Wikipedia. It is hypothesised that: species whose scientific names are etymologically related to celebrities will receive more attention on Wikipedia than their closest relatives who are not named after celebrities; the average daily Wikipedia page views of celebrities will influence the difference in received attention for species named after this celebrity and their closest relatives not named after celebrities; and the taxonomic groups species named after celebrities belong to will influence the difference in attention they receive compared to their closest relatives who are not named after celebrities.

Background: The international trade of wildlife (animals and plants) provides critical resources for human communities worldwide and contributes to local, national, and international economies. However, increasing demand presents a significant threat to both species and ecosystems as well as wildlife-centered livelihoods. Concerns regarding illicit trade of wildlife and unsustainable harvest has propelled international wildlife trade regulation to the top of political and conservation agendas. Consequently, a broad range of interventions have been established to regulate the trade and address biodiversity decline. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the impacts of international wildlife trade interventions, this protocol sets out the parameters for a systematic map which will comprehensively collate and describe the extent and distribution of the evidence base. The resulting map aims to provide insight to guide future research and inform practice. Methods: This systematic map will identify, map, and characterize the available evidence on the impacts of established policies and programs to address international wildlife trade. Specifically, the systematic map will describe: (1) the volume and distribution of studies that have examined impacts of various interventions on conservation, biological, and socioeconomic outcomes; (2) research methodologies that have been used to evaluate impacts; (3) distribution of studies on particular taxa and geographical areas; and (4) identify evidence gaps in need of more research. We will search two publication databases and several organizational and topical websites for relevant published articles and grey literature. In addition, a call for literature will be issued among relevant research networks. The titles, abstracts, and full texts of captured studies will be assessed against inclusion criteria. Double screening will be carried out on a subset of studies to ensure consistency. Relevant information from studies will be extracted using an a priori codebook. The resulting map will consist of descriptive statistics, a heat map in the form of a matrix, and a narrative synthesis describing characteristics of included studies.

We test the hypothesis that protest participation decisions in an adult population of potential climate protesters are interdependent. Subjects (n=1,510) from the four largest German cities were recruited two weeks before protest date. We measured participation (ex post) and beliefs about the other subjects' participation (ex ante) in an online survey, used a randomized informational intervention to induce exogenous variance in beliefs, and estimated the causal effect of a change in belief on the probability of participation using a control function approach. Participation decisions are found to be strategic substitutes: a one percentage-point increase of belief causes a .67 percentage-point decrease in the probability of participation in the average subject., Comment: 21 pages, 6 pages appendix, 4 figures

International audience; Agriculture is considered to be a vital aspect of Algeria's national economy and rural development. Achieving sustainable agricultural production, generating employment, reducing imports and minimising post-harvest crops losses are the major objectives of the Algerian government. However, based on the evaluation of existing policies, this study found that poor governance is hampering the agriculture sector, particularly in terms of management of financial resources, where most financial investments are made only for short-term gains. The lack of awareness about the importance of post-harvest practices and lack of using modern technology threaten the growth of this sector. Adopting sound post-harvest methods can reduce food losses and wastage in every stage of the food supply chain, and integration of modern techniques, skilled labour, and education training systems are very important if agriculture in Algeria is to progress.

A major challenge for humanity today is to articulate a developmental vision that can achieve a reasonable quality of life for the global population of over 7 billion without breaching sustainability limits. The Human Development Index (HDI) (UNDP 2010), which externalizes the planetary pressures of economic growth, promotes misguided development models since countries scoring highest on HDI have transgressed multiple planetary boundaries (O’Neill et al. 2018). The question that arises is whether templates of development exist among the fraternity of nations that may be sustainably scaled to the global population. We study this by constructing a new conceptual framework foregrounding the principles of equity, historic responsibility, and planetary boundaries. We propose a new environmentally-driven measure of human development – called the eHDI – that internalizes the climate and ecological pressures of economic growth. Analysis of the developmental trajectories of countries over the past three decades based on the eHDI reveals profound insights. We identify Panama, Costa Rica, Albania, Sri Lanka, and Georgia as the top examplar models that can provide reasonably high levels of human development to the entire global population with low environmental pressures. However, a conservative extrapolation of current trends indicates that only the Sri Lankan and Costa Rican trajectories may remain (largely) within planetary boundaries by 2050. Our results, therefore, foreground these two countries as the ones that merit the most focus in sustainability policy studies.

Agricultural commodity production constitutes an important livelihood source for farmers but significantly contributes to tropical deforestation and biodiversity loss. While the socioecological effects of agricultural commodities such as palm oil, cocoa and coffee are well studied, the effects for commodities such as cashew (Anacardium occidentale) have received less attention. Global cultivated area for cashew increased rapidly from 526,250 ha in 1980 to ~5.9 million ha in 2018. India is the world's second largest cashew producer, with cashew farms often occurring adjacent to remnant forests. To mitigate deforestation for cashew expansion, it is necessary to understand present-day land use policies and management practices that drive this expansion. Through semi-structured interviews (n = 65) and a literature review on agricultural policies in India, we evaluated the role of state-led land use policies in cashew expansion and characterised present-day cashew farming systems in the Sawantwadi-Dodamarg landscape in India. Agricultural subsidies introduced from 1980s to 1990s encouraged cultivar cashew expansion and influenced land use conversion from rice and privately owned forest to cashew. Farmers preferred cultivar cashew as they produced higher yields faster, although they required more agrochemical inputs and were susceptible to pests and wildlife depredation. About 80% of farmers had planted cashew farms by clearing forests in the past 30 years and expressed interest to continue the same. Farmers avoided applying for government-sponsored compensation for crop losses due to wildlife depredation and chose instead to expand cultivar cashew into forested areas. Our study deepens the understanding of how government-led agricultural subsidies drive farmers' uptake of cashew cultivars, farmers' cashew management practices, and how these factors drive deforestation in this landscape at the state and farm level. We recommend further research with equitable stakeholder participation in cashew farming systems to devise sound planning for forest conservation and sustainability standards for the cashew industry. Ministry of Education (MOE) National Research Foundation (NRF) Published version This work was supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 1 RG145/19 Grant secured by J.S.H.L. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. This research was supported by the Earth Observatory of Singapore via its funding from the National Research Foundation Singapore and the Singapore Ministry of Education under the Research Centres of Excellence initiative.

Background: Homicides are the leading cause of death among young males. Conventional approaches to interpreting variations in criminality over time and across countries have failed to explain it.Methods: We applied ordinary least squared regressions on yearly homicide rates to identify the planetary drivers for homicides in Germany, the UK, and the USA over the past three solar cycles (22 to 24) between 1987 and 2018. We used the number of sunspots (solar activity), Kp and Ap indices (geomagnetic activity) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the German Research Centre for Geosciences DFZ-Potsdam, and weather variables from the countries’ meteorological organizations. Results: Our study revealed that lagged Kp NOAA index as a parameter of solar-driven geomagnetic disturbances (GMD) was the most important predictor to explain homicide rates in all three countries. Our results showed that over half the variance in homicide rates of all three countries could be attributed to GMD, not so by weather variables. We also predicted homicide rates peaking for 2025 and 2026 during the current 25th solar cycle, suggesting the current solar cycle could prove to be one of the most intense in a century, which would signal a concomitant increase in homicide rates. Based on the Italian experience in curbing homicides, we also suggest that collective agency may break what appears to be a deadly association between GMD and homicides.Conclusions: Our study suggests GMD may be involved in shaping human behavior and may help public and medical authorities prepare for eventual surges in homicides as the 25th solar cycle may induce stronger GMD.

Public acceptability is important for sustainable land use zoning policy to be successfully implemented. This study examined the effectiveness of tailoring messages with cultural worldviews to induce positive attitudes and improve public acceptability of sustainable land use zoning policy in a post-conflict setting. A total of 538 participants were randomly divided into three groups. Two were treatment groups and received promotional information about a hypothetical land-use zoning policy, and one group was the control group and received no promotional information. The results indicate that information provision results in positive attitudes and higher public acceptability of land use zoning policy. Arguments that correspond to participants' cultural worldviews generated more positive attitudes and higher acceptability than arguments that conflict with their cultural worldviews. This study recommends targeting messages with peoples’ cultural worldviews as an effective strategy in inducing positive attitudes and higher acceptability for sustainable land use zoning policy in Somalia.

Agricultural production needs to increase to feed a rapidly growing population, arable land is shrinking due to urbanization and the adverse effects of climate change. This calls for an intensification of agricultural production which cannot be achieved in a sustainable way with conventional agricultural practices. Here, we are discussing the future of sustainable intensification of rice-potato agri-food systems in Asia. This document is part of a series of short papers on “The Future of X”, produced as part of foresight-related research supported by the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM).

Food, land, and water systems are facing unprecedented change. The world’s population is projected to grow to approximately 10 billion people by 2050, while aging and declining in some regions. Global average incomes are expected to keep increasing at a slow but steady pace. With increasing incomes and the ability of consumers to purchase more and better food in combination with population growth, food demand is projected to grow substantially over the next three decades. Meanwhile, demographic changes and economic development also drive urbanization, migration, and structural transformation of rural communities. At the same time changes to precipitation and temperature as well as the occurrence of extreme events driven by climate change are becoming more prevalent and impacting society and the environment. Currently, humanity is approaching or exceeding planetary boundaries in some areas, with over-use of limited productive natural resources such as water and phosphate, net emissions of greenhouse gases, and decreases in biodiversityMuch is published about food and agriculture and the supporting/underpinning land and water systems, but no single source focuses regularly and systematically on the future of agriculture and food systems, particularly on the challenges and opportunities faced by developing countries. This working paper is part of an effort by the CGIAR foresight team to help fill that gap. The effort recognizes that there is much to learn from past experience, and there are clearly many urgent and immediate challenges, but given the pace and complexity of change we are currently experiencing, there is also an increasing need to look carefully into the future of food, land, and water systems to inform decision making today.

In summary, there are great opportunities to better use wood as a non-fossil fuel-based raw materials and tackle climate change, as well as to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. However, there is an urgent need to invest in more research on how this could be best implemented in a sustainable way and in different regions, especially in the global South.

Demand for animal-source foods (ASF) has grown substantially in Africa over the last four decades, fueled mainly by population growth, urbanization, and modest gains in per capita incomes. Further growth over the medium and longer terms is expected as these trends in external drivers continue, with implications of this growth reflecting a multitude of economic, environmental, and public health trade-offs. This paper provides a focused, forward-looking perspective on key emerging issues around changes in ASF consumption and supply in Africa.

This document is part of a series of short papers on “The Future of X”, produced as part of foresight-related research supported by the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets, and edited by Keith Wiebe (IFPRI) and Steven Prager (Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT). These short papers are intended to provide a focused, forward-looking perspective on key issues to support discussion on food, land, and water systems transformation. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft.This is an accepted version presented as a pre-print. It is currently undergoing final revision, editing, and production. A final version will be made available at http://foresight.cgiar.org.

This brief summarizes results of three recent studies that assessed whether Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) can be self-sufficient in cereals (maize, rice, wheat, sorghum, and millet) while minimizing GHG emission by 2050 under different scenarios of intensification on existing cereal area, as opposed to crop land area expansion. The results from three studies suggest that intensification of cereal production with sufficient and efficient use of fertilizers could lead to the lowest GHG emissions among the scenarios studied in future cereal productions in SSA. However, this requires excellent agronomy, including the use of well-adapted cultivars, proper planting densities, good nutrient management and crop protection against weeds, pests, and diseases. It should also be noted that intensification of cereal production may also have additional benefits, including improving the economic profitability for smallholders in SSA.

Proposals for slowing climate change by reflecting sunlight back to space, known as solar geoengineering (SG), are gaining traction in climate policy. Given SG’s capacity to slow warming without reducing carbon emissions, prominent criticism suggests that it will enable fossil fueled business-as-usual. This assessment is not without merit, yet the primary funders of SG research do not emanate from fossil capital. We analyze sources of funding for SG research, finding close ties to financial and technological capital as well as a number of billionaire philanthropists. These corporate sectors and associated philanthropies comprise part of “climate capital” – the fraction of the capitalist class aligned with climate action. We argue that SG is being positioned as a tactic for enabling incremental, market-driven decarbonization, explore key institutions advocating this approach in US climate policy, and conclude that SG is poised to serve as a tool for class compromise between fossil and climate capital.

Urban food is a key lever for transformative change towards sustainability. While research reporting on the urban food practices in support of sustainability is increasing, the link towards transformative potential is lacking. This is because research on urban food is often place-based and contextual. This limits the applicability of insights to large-scale sustainability transformations. This paper develops a framework to synthesise insights from urban food research across multiple disciplines and explores its links to transformations research. We have developed a framework of signposts for transformative change based on processes and outcomes that are considered key for sustainable (urban) food transformations. Secondly, we classify diverse urban food practices to elevate them beyond their local, place-based contexts. We find that urban food practices carry a lot of potential to facilitate sustainability transformations. Based on that analysis, we provide insights on how urban food research can further contribute to harnessing the transformative potential of urban food practices for actionable purposes.

Sooner after the pandemic was declared and nowadays, some scientists, researchers and media have tended to associate Covid 19 with the results of climate change and give insights about how it needs to be interpreted in economic, social, political, communicational dimensions for combat against climate change, as well as what has been learnt/can be learnt from it, and what else can be carried out by being followed what has been learnt, etc. The essay relies on a view of what we learnt from the pandemic on the matter of climate change, and whether some approaches might be derived from what we experienced and learnt from the pandemic, and, most importantly, those would be applicable to combating the climate change as well as the current approaches related to the subject.

Global raptor conservation relies on humans to establish and improve interaction and coexistence with raptor species. Human-wildlife interaction research is well-established, but tends to focus on large-bodied, terrestrial mammals. The scope and characteristics of research that explores human-raptor interactions is relatively unknown. As an initial step toward quantifying and characterizing the state of applied, cross-disciplinary literature in human-raptor interactions, we use established systematic map protocols to catalog the literature and describe trends, identify gaps and biases, and critically reflect on the state of the literature. We focus on peer-reviewed literature germane to human-raptor interaction, conflict, tolerance, acceptance, and coexistence. Based on the 383 papers retrieved from the literature that fit our criteria, we identified trends, biases, and gaps. These include a majority of research taking place within North America and Europe; disproportionately few interdisciplinary and social research studies; interactions focused on indirect anthropogenic mortality (poisons and wind turbine collisions); and vague calls for human behavior changes, with few concrete steps suggested, when management objectives are discussed. Overall, we note a predominant focus on the study of ecological effects from human-raptor interactions rather than sociocultural causes and suggest (as others have in various conservation contexts) the imperative of human behavioral, cultural, and political inquiry to conserve raptor species.

Digital technologies (DTs), such as the internet of things, big data, artificial intelligence or blockchain, are considered as enablers for a more sustainable and circular economy. So far, literature on these topics has mostly focused on specific DTs and sub-areas of sustainable product management (SPM). The aim of this paper is to provide a more comprehensive overview of current and potential examples of DT applications in SPM (e.g., product design/assessment, supply chain management, business models). The collected examples (n=146) were analyzed based on a systematic literature review, using quantitative and qualitative content analysis. Deductive and inductive analyses of the examples revealed the potential of DTs in terms of their useability along the product life cycle, their role as enablers for circular economy strategies and in specific SPM activities. DT application often entails only incremental improvements, e.g., increased efficiency of existing processes, with more radical forms of improvement remaining relatively scarce. There is clear room for greater adoption and optimization of DTs, in various areas of SPM, so as to accelerate the transition towards a more sustainable and circular economy.

This paper was published 19 May 2022 and freely available (and a lot better looking!) on the open access journal website, Citizen Science Theory and Practice https://theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org/articles/10.5334/cstp.406/ The food system is comprised of biophysical and social processes affecting everyone, and food system citizen and community science offer opportunities for research, especially on unstudied aspects of that system, including responses to crises and disasters. We describe how community science work on food crop seeds responded to the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how this response built on the social investigations that are part of that ongoing work. To address a number of the crises of the Anthropocene, groups and individuals have been creating infrastructure supporting community-driven seed research and provision. Some organizations investigate community development of locally adapted crops, and introduction of novel materials for testing in new environments, as well as alternative social organization and processes supportive of this research and aligned with their values. Looking at examples of two active, United States–based, community seed organizations, represented by two of the co-authors, we outline the values and theoretical grounding of this work, and how responding to the acute crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic has challenged these organizations to rapidly develop seed distribution work in ways consistent with their values and missions. Meeting these immediate needs has meant temporarily pivoting from the longer-term evolutionary processes of their community science biological investigations; still, existing social investigations remained relevant and useful in their pandemic work. The effectiveness of this crisis response provides an example of explicitly values-driven research, and indicates the importance of recognizing the implicit social investigations of community science that sometimes experiment with alternative approaches to organizing society to achieve both immediate results, and longer term, prosocial change.

Multicultural representation is a stated goal of many global scientific assessment processes. These processes aim to mobilize a broader, more diverse knowledge base and increase legitimacy and inclusiveness of these assessment processes. Often, enhancing cultural diversity is encouraged through involvement of diverse expert teams and sources of knowledge in different languages. In this article, we examined linguistic diversity, as one representation of cultural diversity, in the eight published assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Our results show that the IPBES assessment outputs are disproportionately filtered through English-language literature and authors from Anglophone countries. To incorporate more linguistic diversity into global ecosystem assessment processes, we present actionable steps for global science teams to recognize and incorporate non-English-language literature and contributions from non-Anglophones. Our findings highlight the need for broad-scale actions that enhance inclusivity in knowledge-synthesis processes through balanced representation of different knowledge holders and sources.

In this essay, Chloé Germaine Buckley and Benjamin Bowman discuss the School Strike for Climate movement. Rather than consider the strikes as a protest movement for a large-scale shift in climate policy, they suggest viewing them as a form of global cultural exchange. They highlight the role of three themes to make this case: 1. the role of young people’s positionalities in building relationships and global solidarities;2. young people’s repertoires beyond attempting to shift climate policy into wider civic activity such as intergenerational care or mental health support;3. the functioning of the strikes as a polyphonic ‘text’ that invites dialogue, incorporating a multitude of voices in a variety of forms. In their essay, Buckley and Bowman interpret the efforts of young people not only as a protest against the world as it is today, but as a process that envisions the world as it could be, with all the struggles that come with bringing this view into being. The authors draw on a range of materials produced by young people, from informal protest signs to songs.

We designed and conducted an experiment of common-pool resource management involving economic and political inequality. Participants are assigned to different types differing in their endowments-Poor, Middle and Rich-and play an appropriation dilemma, with and without a voting procedure to select a quota limiting maximum extraction. Political inequality is introduced by allocating a higher likelihood to select the voted quota of a given player type: in the Ptochocracy treatment, the "Poor" type has a higher chance of setting her choice as quota; whereas in the Demarchy and Plutocracy treatments, this is true for the "Middle" and "Rich" types, respectively. These are contrasted with Democracy, where the votes of all three types are equally likely to be selected. Theoretically, each player type selfishly prefers the quota closer (i.e., one unit below) their endowment, although the lower quota would be socially desirable. We find that participants voted for the selfishly preferred quota between half and two-thirds of the time, and the introduction of these quotas decreased the absolute extraction in about 17.5%, even though participants were more likely to choose extraction levels closer to their maximum capacity (now set by the quota). Nonetheless, we do not find systematic differences in extraction patterns between treatments.

2021 has seen increasing climate policy action and net-zero commitments by individuals, companies and governments. A crucial aspect for the transition to net-zero is the voluntary offset market, with projects relating to REDD+ amongst the most popular. Policy-makers are grappling to make such markets efficient and scalable, however, many issues undermine these efforts pertaining to additionality, permanence, leakage and property and community rights. Digitisation has also accelerated, with technologies, notably blockchain, starting to enter the climate change space. Its use is becoming increasingly common within the voluntary market and, in particular, REDD+, although such projects, are generally in proposal or pilot stages. Given the emergence of other technologies such as AI and machine learning, the technologisation of REDD+ is only likely to increase. Thus modern technologies are being seen by developers as a potential solution to issues hindering REDD+. Potential benefits arising from technology use are unlikely to fully accrue without a wider focus on what has undermined REDD+ to date. As such, there is an urgency to establish an understanding of how projects can utilise these technologies to reduce long-standing issues. To do this, we discuss these issues together with technologies’ capacity to address drawbacks of REDD+ projects

Funding shortage limits conservation impact, making it vital to find effective fundraising methods. To explore how traditional and digital conservation fundraising methods perform, we conducted real-world field experiments by using mailshot and Facebook advertisements. We compare three types of message frames (Simple, Seed money, and Ecological) and found that the Seed money frame, which emphasizes the amount already donated, increased the number of donors, whereas the Ecological frame, which focuses on the fact that the fundraiser benefits threatened species, led to a relative reduction in this number. We also found that while on Facebook advertising costs were higher than donations, the opposite was true for the traditional mailshot experiment. Our findings illustrate some of the challenges associated with online fundraising, and importance of behavioral evidence to enhance effective fundraising in conservation.

Governments are increasingly adopting Blue Growth strategies as a means of promoting economic development. Although Blue Growth offers development opportunities, from a local perspective it is often concentrated in inaccessible sectors or has negative impacts on coastal communities and landscapes. We argue that to be of use to local communities, tourist experiences of coastal landscapes need to be understood from a community-led, rather than market-led, perspective. Tourist market segmentation can help reveal such experiences but has predominately been used in a narrow, econometric way by the tourism industry, market researchers and policymakers. These approaches often fail to capture the innate experiential nature of coastal tourism and often result in the production of coastal tourism that is unsympathetic to community landscape perspectives and values. To address this gap, this paper adopts an experiential tourist segmentation approach based on community experiences of coastal landscapes. Applied to data collected from a tourist survey on the west coast of Ireland, we identify five landscape experiences: well-being experiences; conscientious travel experiences; nature experiences; coastal change experiences; and cultural experiences. Based on these experiences, four alternative tourist segments were identified, with significant alignment to communities around sustainable, ethical and locally sensitised forms of tourism, as follows: Blue Health Seekers; Nature Escapers; Pristine Seekers; and Heritage Explorers. The paper concludes by arguing that adopting more experiential and dialogical approaches to market segmentation will identify tourist and communities’ perspectives in ways that are compatible and will reveal opportunities for more inclusive and locally accessible forms of Blue Growth.

Global changes cause many problems which directly impact forests and the foresters who manage them. One of the effects of global climate change may be an increased number of trees dying out or emerging threats to forest sustainability from pathogens. There are two possible ways to act in these situations: coping or adapting. The first type of response is anticipated, needed and indicating a profound change and behavior adjustment. The other type of action involves merely reacting without introducing in-depth changes. The current study sought to determine whether the response of foresters managing temperate zone state forests is appropriate to the occurring global changes. For this purpose, questionnaire interviews were conducted with selected foresters employed by the State Forests. Foresters were given an opportunity to describe their methods of counteracting negative changes in the forest environment caused (in their opinion) by global changes. Subsequently, these statements were classified by researchers as being either coping or adapting to change. The results of a qualitative analysis indicate that foresters in the State Forests are engaged in activities that may be classified as adapting to global changes rather than coping with them. The implications of this analysis for forest policy and management are also discussed.

The illegal wildlife trade is the major cause for global loss of diversity. In Southeast Asia regions and particularly in Vietnam, the consumption of wildlife products is mostly driven by the demand for food and traditional medicinal products. However, consumers’ motivations are poorly understood. In this study, we use mixed social science approaches and social network analysis to understand the social network influence on the consumption of bear bile through gift-giving practices in Hanoi and Nghe An. The study also provides a deeper understanding of how bear bile is consumed as gifts and the current information on bear bile usage. We found that 97.5% of all interviewees have given or received bear bile and the most common occasion for gift-giving is during visits between closed social circles of family and friends. Other reasons for giving bear bile include illnesses, gratitude, drinking among males, and ulterior motives.

The article discusses the prospects of local wood waste resources as replacements for fossil fuel imports in the remote settlements of the Russian North from a viewpoint of a case study: the Arkhangelsk region and its outdated heating and fossil fuel delivery systems. Drawing on energy transition literature and expert interviews, the most influential factors are defined in geographic-infrastructural, institutional, financial, and behavioral contexts. In conclusion, the article determines that a key issue is that the constraints for alternative energy sources reinforce each other, while the actors working for them find themselves in an isolated position. This is especially true for the institutional and financial constraints. However, by examining the enabling factors it is possible to see how the bundle of constraints could also be undone together. Most efficient way for success would likely be helping municipalities and actors in the fields of biomass and energy production to form joint clusters and share resources.

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M To enable sustainability pathways, we need to understand how social-ecological systems (SES) respond to different governance configurations, considering their historical, institutional, political, and power conditions. We advance a robust methodological approach for the integrated analysis of those conditions in SES traps. Our advancement consists of a novel combination of the networks of action situations approach with an agency-based polycentric power typology and the concept of discursive power. We test the approach by building on previous research on the Doñana estuary-delta SES (Guadalquivir estuary), which is characterized by a rigidity trap in the context of ecosystem and water governance. Specifically, we focus on a recent hydraulic megaproject involving deep dredging in the Guadalquivir estuary, finally canceled due to its broad negative socioeconomic and environmental repercussions. According to our analysis, certain governance, institutional, and informational mechanisms currently prevent further SES degradation in Doñana. However, key governance actors are caught in a lasting coordination failure prone to mutual defection strategies owing to power dynamics and discursive-institutional inertia. Although seemingly stable due to counteractive mechanisms among actors, this situation is at continuous risk of being unbalanced by powerful actors promoting large SES interventions such as deep dredging. Such interventions bear the systemic risk of strong suppression of SES functions, and a regime shift to a lock-in trap. This overall undesirable situation might be escaped through transformative policy designs that take into account meso-level mechanisms, such as discursive power and its role in non-decision-making, pragmatic inaction, and inefficient investment and infrastructure.

Little evidence currently guides the conservation community in telling stories which can influence willingness to address fisheries bycatch. Research from behavioural science shows that people act less pro-socially when others are responsible for the outcome (responsibility diffusion), and when more victims need to be helped (compassion fade). We conduct the first test of responsibility diffusion and compassion fade in a marine context, investigating if media stories varying the type of actors responsible for fisheries bycatch (e.g., consumers and industry), and victims (e.g., a single species, multiple species, and ecosystems) matter. In a pre-registered online experiment (N = 1,548) in the UK, we find that attributing responsibility to both consumers and industry (rather than just consumers) increased support for fisheries policies (e.g., bycatch enforcement or consumer taxes). However, we find no effect from varying the type of victim.