Anthropocene Science最新文献

The democratic discourse on climate change and sustainable development is becoming increasingly polarized. While some voters are pushing back against the movement to wean the world economy away from fossil fuels, others are questioning the huge costs that the transition to a green economy will impose and whether such attempts will have the required impact. This essay discusses the relationship between democracy and sustainable development by comparing the records of China and India in relation to the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It argues that the politics of sustainable development has not received the attention it deserves. With a growing number of actors involved at various levels of society, the sustainable development narrative has often focused on a win–win narrative while glossing over areas where political agreement is more difficult to reach. While autocracies can achieve good results, democracy provides the best platform and guarantees for difficult negotiations and deliberations that are required for the achievement of sustainable development.

India has one of the largest railway networks in the world, it is proposed that some of its lands could be utilized for tree plantation and carbon sequestration activities. In this study, we make an effort to estimate the potential land available for carrying out plantation activities on Indian railways land and further estimate the carbon mitigation potential from these activities. Two land options are considered for plantation activities, (a) Plantations along Railway Tracks (along the route length) and (b) Plantations around railway sidings. The available land along the railway tracks is derived by systematically eliminating the land parcels that are non-suitable using high-resolution satellite data. We eliminated lands that are either already forested or already having tree cover. Uncultivable wastelands (open barren lands) and railway lines passing through water bodies, bridges, railway station platforms, crossings, etc. are also eliminated. Our analysis suggests that a maximum of total potential area of about 56.5 thousand hectares may be available for plantation and other mitigation actions along railway tracks and railway sidings. We used the CO₂ fix model for simulating plot level carbon dynamics, the model is simulated for 35 years from 2015 to 2050. The model has been tested and validated for different forest ecosystems across the world in multiple studies. Plot-level simulations are carried out for each Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs) as AEZs represent homogenous climatic, ecological, and edaphic units. Plot level mitigation estimates in each of the carbon pools are extrapolated for the available land area and considered for plantation activities in each of the Agro-ecological Zones. This study finds that Indian railways provide a modest mitigation potential (of about 5–25 MtCO₂ over 2015–2050, depending on combinations of the area considered for plantations and growth rates), compared to other options available in the Indian landuse change sector such as forest restoration and reclamation of wastelands via tree plantations.

Botanical pesticides have been used for the control of agricultural pests since antiquity, especially in biodiversity-rich countries. However, so far very limited products based on botanicals are commercially available due to lack of practical evidence, availability of raw materials at affordable prices, chemical standardization, the molecular mechanism of action, and strict legislation. The recent reports on the negative effects of currently used synthetic insecticides, and antimicrobial agents on health and the environment, revitalize the interest of agri-food industries towards the development of plant-based pesticidal agents for the sustainable management of storage pests. The current advancement in science and technology could overcome the limitations of botanicals, thus, in the past few years, insecticidal and antimicrobial properties of botanicals have been widely explored as a potential eco-friendly alternative to synthetic pesticides. In the present review, we summarise the potential of botanicals against insect pests and microbial contamination of stored food grain. Further, the elucidation of the probable mechanism of toxicity, safety profile, and ecological risk assessment has been explored using computation tools. In addition, current existing limitations and the need for further research to develop eco-friendly plant-based pesticides for sustainable management of stored food grain and their shelved products have been discussed.

Restoring degraded land is essential for regaining ecosystem services (ES) and attaining the UN-Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Unfortunately, 24% of the global lands are degraded, significantly affecting the lives of 3.2 billion people worldwide. Therefore, innovative restoration practices are vital during ‘UN-Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.’ A meta-analysis of 2093 documents on land degradation and restoration was conducted in this context, and 117 empirical studies were analyzed in detail. These studies were based on the different drivers of land degradation as per the criteria of IPBES and IPCC, respectively. Results suggested that woodland encroachment (18.25%), cropland expansion (18.11%), species loss/compositional shifts (16.06%), climatic factors (14.96%), infrastructure development/urbanization (14.17%), water erosion (13.87%), wind erosion (9.49%) and other demographic pressures (8.66%) were the significant drivers of land degradation. Interestingly, there was a continent-wide change in the critical drivers of land degradation and depleting ES. The infrastructure development/urbanization, demography, and economic attributes were the essential drivers in Asia–Pacific and African regions. In contrast, the fire-regime shift and invasiveness were the significant drivers in Europe, and the climatic attribute was the crucial driver in the Americas. Out of the 117 studies selected worldwide, some ongoing restoration efforts had little emphasis on research-driven on-site restoration for improving different ES. Furthermore, some restoration projects lack proper stakeholder involvement thereby, fail to attract large-scale public acceptance. Moreover, only 12.8% of the studies focused on improving the ES in highly degraded lands. Therefore, this meta-analysis suggests that site-specific, research-driven, and on-site restoration strategies coupled with proper stakeholder engagement are imperative for regaining the ES and functions of the degraded landscape to attain UN-SDG.

Small island developing states are often characterized as vulnerable owing to their unique geographies of smallness and remoteness, resource insecurity, and more recently from the impacts of climate change. These vulnerabilities are often manifested in resource insecurity, significant imports, poor waste management, and the inability to develop economies of scale. In effect, sustaining small islands in an era of global environmental change is a task both scholars and policy makers are increasingly grappling with. Can small islands be sustainable? This research examines the social metabolism of an island system, and introduces the concept of “socio-metabolic vulnerability”. As such, this research provides novel insights into the linkages between patterns of resource-use, systemic risks and vulnerability. Results from a local material and energy flow analysis (local-MEFA) for the island of Ndzuwani (Comoros) suggest a very low level of resource-use but at the same time heavy reliance on critical imports that cover vast distances, that are vulnerable to price and climate shocks. Informal activities in resource extraction play an important role in lending both vulnerability and resilience to Ndzuwani. This study adds to the scarce body of literature that argues that small island economies would need to leverage resource-use patterns to build system resilience, along with bold policies and institutions that support material circularity, engage communities and fosters frugal innovation.

Sacred natural sites (SNS) are multi-functional in nature and provide a variety of ecosystem services that contribute to human well-being and environmental sustainability. Interest in the SNS and their role in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services have grown in the Anthropocene. Researchers suggested that, besides having spiritual and religious values for local community, SNS provide provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. In this study, we identified and valued the importance of ecosystem services provided by SNS in the Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The methods used included field work, in-depth literature review, observations, focus-group discussions (FGD) and interviews. This study identified 35 ecosystem services of SNS spanning across four categories including provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. According to the informants, SNS provide a wide range of ecosystem services, with supporting services being most valued followed by cultural, regulating, and provisioning services. We recommend that a sustainable management of SNS should be based on the local people’s participation in policy, planning and decision-making and utilization of hybrid knowledge system combining modern science and traditional ecological knowledge. Findings of the research contribute to a growing literature on ecosystem services and provide a basis for future studies to unearth how ecosystem services of SNS can support the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Sustainable marine fishing practices are often hindered by local-level factors in areas with high fishery potentials, such as Odisha, India. Scientific services to fishing, such as Marine Fishery Advisories (MFAs) on the Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) and weather information in the form of Ocean State Forecast (OSF) advisories provided by INCOIS, India, are valuable knowledge products which can help the fishers to overcome several socio-technical constraints (STCs) to effective fishing practices. The present investigation provides a critical analysis of five STCs prevailing in 4 districts (Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Puri and Ganjam) of Southern Odisha which can possibly hinder the effective assimilation of the MFAs. These five STCs are the hierarchy of fishers in fishing operations, pathways of transition to new fishing technologies, the adaptive capacity of the fishers to use scientific advisories, the need to achieve economic resilience from fishing as well as the contribution to the preservation of ecosystem sustainability. Stakeholder mapping based on the ground-based observations revealed that inadequate transitions pathways, varying hierarchical positions and low adaptive capacities contributed to higher STCs in general. Sensitivity of the fishers to achieving economic as well as environmental sustainability in their enterprise leads to lower STCs and greater assimilation capacities. The analyses of STCs presented here provide a robust methodology to manage the social cost of carbon which can be useful to achieve sustainability targets with respect to marine fisheries by adopting regular use of MFAs.

Mountain ecosystems across South Asia are facing huge pressure and are threatened by different drivers of loss. Red List of Ecosystems, to assess risks and ecosystem health, offers an exciting prospect to address complex challenges faced by ecosystems. This opinion is an outcome of the brainstorming organized to mark the International Mountain Day in December 2020, followed by further discussions among key stakeholders for initiating the Red List of Ecosystem (RLE) assessment in the region. As an initial endeavor, we have explored the evidence available to be integrated with the basic RLE requirements to undertake the ecosystem health assessment for mountain ecosystems in South Asia. We argue that the existing data gaps and insufficient understanding of the RLE process are a key-barriers to initiating ecosystem health assessment for supporting and contributing to knowledge-based conservation, governance, livelihood, land use, and macroeconomic planning. The RLE-based planning should be expanded and implemented for diverse ecosystems by enhancing transboundary cooperation, research collaboration, co-production of knowledge, and involving local communities. This opinion paper is an effort to facilitate, encourage and enhance discussions among wider stakeholders for developing a multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary network of experts in the region for undertaking large scale RLE assessment for different mountain ecosystems that are threatened by an array of drivers of biodiversity and ecosystem services loss. This can guide strategic conservation efforts to halt and reverse the losses by community supported landscape restoration programmes.