Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability最新文献

Recently, a series of frameworks have been developed that aim to assess the agroecological performance of farming systems. These frameworks are characterized by a heavy load of dimensions and indicators, making application of these frameworks in the practical setting of agricultural development projects difficult as well as expensive. In this position paper, we look at recent developments in agile data collection and how these can help to further improve the monitoring of agroecological transitions in general. More specifically, in this position paper, we i) outline a flexible and light approach to assess agroecological transitions in a given project setting, ii) provide examples of how it can be applied, and iii) highlight how it can help local agents to support transitions as well as can generate a generic information base for agroecology.

Many sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries are experiencing multiple burdens of malnutrition. Rising overweight/obesity coexist alongside persistent burdens of under-nutrition and multiple micronutrient deficiencies. Poverty and social inequity remain key drivers of unhealthy diets and malnutrition. Diets in SSA are increasingly transitioning towards unhealthy (energy-dense, nutrient-poor and unsafe) and environmentally unsustainable diets. Healthy, sustainable food systems are required to deal with these considerable challenges equitably, so policy action needs to balance the health, environmental and economic dimensions of diets and food systems. We review evidence in recent literature for which policy actions have the best chance of success in SSA by appraising their likely impact, relevance, cost/affordability and feasibility to help guide policymakers and researchers in their development and evaluation.

Much of the attention of the agroecological (AE) movement has focused on the adoption of AE farming practices. While the utilization of these practices is essential to the AE transition, AE food systems will only arise when the demand for AE products emerges. This review synthesizes the research that has examined the role of demand in the AE transition. We explore what lessons have been learned in understanding consumer interest in products with AE attributes and how demand for AE products has helped spur or hinder the AE transition. We conclude with an analysis of the next steps in advancing our knowledge to better understand how to enhance the demand for AE products to build AE food systems.

A greater focus on governance is needed to facilitate effective and substantive progress toward sustainability transformations in the aquaculture sector. Concerted governance efforts can help move the sector beyond fragmented technical questions associated with intensification and expansion, social and environmental impacts, and toward system-based approaches that address interconnected sustainability issues. Through a review and expert-elicitation process, we identify five engagement arenas to advance a governance agenda for aquaculture sustainability transformation: (1) setting sustainability transformation goals, (2) cross-sectoral linkages, (3) land–water–sea connectivity, (4) knowledge and innovation, and (5) value chains. We then outline the roles different actors and modes of governance can play in fostering sustainability transformations, and discuss action items for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to operationalize activities within their engagement arenas.

Natural resource management (NRM) is complex and often characterized by a multitude of stakeholders at different scales, each with their own goals. Increasingly, serious games are used in these contexts as (social) learning tools and boundary objects to facilitate collective learning and support local decision-making. However, despite the well-established interest, the scientific evidence of the impact of serious games remains a debated topic. Here, we present a brief overview of the most recent literature. Our aim is to contribute to that debate with a conceptual proposal based on the issue-attention cycle, we suggest to clearly linking game objective, desired learning, and associated impact assessment method to support researchers and practitioners in their efforts to move from knowledge to action while building scientific evidence about the impact of serious games.

Instrumental and relational values of nature to people affect what is considered and portrayed as rational and aligned with moral foundations. Decision-making on natural resources involves individuals, collectives, and their modes of communication. Effective science-policy interfaces — to change the game and transform development trajectories — need to speak to both instrumental and relational rationality. It requires salient, credible, and legitimate syntheses of knowledge on recognized (or emerging) issues for public concern. Beyond the ‘instrumental’ aspects of avoidable harm (nature as protector) and cost-effective care provided to people by nature-based solutions, ‘relational values’ invoke further foundations of morality and of human priorities beyond physiological needs and primary security. Effective communication in issue-attention and policy decision cycles involves acknowledging the plurality of value perspectives and (associated) decision-making modes. We propose hypotheses on how the interaction of values and decision-making modes can be further understood and used.

Multiple ways of communicating values of nature interact with human decisions in natural resource management. The relative emphasis on relational and instrumental values of nature changes with variation in any of the nested social scales: individual motivation, rationality, morality, sociality, culture, and worldviews. This collection of papers reviews how values and decisions interact in the forest–water–people nexus, suggesting conclusions for current policy discourse on transforming development trajectories. Rationality (taking steps to meet goals) and relationality (taking steps to maintain relations) differ in their reference to explicit (short-term) and implicit (long-term) goals. Relational rationality, and the relational value concept it infers, complements instrumental rationality and goal-oriented, instrumental values. Three progressive tipping points in how, historically, human and social systems relate to nature are 1) technological control over nature, 2) nature strikes back, driving environmental institutions and policies controlling technology, and 3) relational values of nature complementing instrumental ones in policy design.

National and sub-national actors are grappling with how to urgently move from climate change commitments to widespread actions that drastically reduce the risks posed by a changing climate and greenhouse gas emissions driving this change in tandem with addressing socio-economic inequalities. A pivotal challenge is how to cohere and sequence interventions in light of competing priorities, changing risk profiles and deep structural inequalities. Ideas of characterising and transitioning to climate-resilient development (CRD) pathways, and away from the historically carbon-intensive, climate-vulnerable and highly inequitable development pathways, are gaining traction in science and policy domains. But how do these ideas get operationalised in practice? Especially in contexts where many people’s basic needs remain unmet, much of what happens is unplanned and unregulated, and access to public decision-making processes is limited. This paper reviews published applications of adaptation and CRD pathways approaches, focussing on those undertaken in Global South contexts. The review reflects on how issues of (in)equity are foregrounded and addressed when working with marginalised and powerful groups to identify risk thresholds, assess and prioritise options and confront unsettling trade-offs and lock-ins. Particular attention is given firstly to how scientific climate information pertaining to various time- and spatial scales is woven together with lived experiences and traditional forms of knowledge. Secondly, the institutional capacities that are needed to transition from maladaptive to more CRD pathways are considered. Building networks of intermediaries to work across social groups, sectors, disciplines and scales, fostering trust and creating opportunities for transformative action, emerges as key to realising equitable CRD pathways.

There is broad agreement on the potential role of values to incite intentional transformative change toward sustainability. However, there is no proposed heuristic on how to mobilize values for sustainability transformation, especially in the context of multilevel decision-making. We aim to fill this gap based on a literature analysis conducted as part of Chapter 5 of the IPBES Values Assessment. We outline four modes of mobilizing values for sustainability transformation: enabling, including, shifting, and reflecting. They differ in terms of the mix of agency and conversely of outside steering needed for each value mobilization mode. We then explore key tensions and insights that emerge through this classification: interdependencies between the modes of mobilizing values, tensions between shifting versus enabling and including values, tensions between which values to shift and which values to enable, and tensions between levels of values intervention (individuals, community, and society).

Socio-environmental conflicts are manifestations of disputes regarding nature or disagreements over the distribution of costs and benefits resulting from nature's transformation induced by human activities. These conflicts often result from divergent worldviews and broad values, which shape the way people interact with and value nature in a profound way. Interestingly, even though they are well-known in their fields, methods for assessing worldviews and broad values are not used as often when addressing sustainability challenges as they should be. By exploring the literature on worldviews and broad value assessment, this review identifies four alternative methods — consensus analysis, ethical analysis, framing analysis, and worldview assessment — that can facilitate dialog in socio-environmental conflict settings. It highlights the usefulness and potential of these methods as a value-centered leverage for transformative change.