Ambio最新文献

Southern Africa faces worsening climate extremes, threatening food security particularly in Zimbabwe, where rain-fed agriculture dominates. Conventional models struggle under these pressures, yet agroecology, a resilient alternative, remains fragmented and weakly integrated into national policy. This review synthesizes evidence from 94 sources to examine agroecological practices, institutional arrangements, and socio-ecological outcomes in Zimbabwe, situating these findings within the broader Southern African Development Community context. Drawing on resilience and socio-ecological systems theories, the analysis demonstrates that agroecology enhances yield stability, promotes biodiversity, and strengthens household food security, frequently outperforming input-intensive systems under climate stress. Despite these advantages, scaling agroecology is hindered by policy gaps and limited public investment. Lessons from Malawi and Tanzania, however, illustrate viable pathways for national-level integration. This comprehensive synthesis provides a roadmap for mainstreaming agroecology, offering both practical insights for African food systems and theoretical contributions towards building adaptive capacity in the face of climate change.

Wild foods (WFs) are an important component of rural diets worldwide. We conducted research in the deforestation frontier of the Argentine Dry Chaco to assess local Criollo people's (LCP) perceptions of changes in WFs consumption over the past decade, and the main drivers of these changes. We interviewed 116 people across multiple settlements. Our results show a marked decline in both the number of wildlife species consumed and the average biomass consumed per family. Currently, families consume 62 kg of wild meat and collect 119 kg of wild fruits and 19 kg of forest honey per year. Although WFs remain in the diet, they are increasingly replaced by livestock meat and purchased foods. Drivers include socioeconomic pressures, reduced WFs availability, restricted access to harvesting areas, and cultural shifts. The results contribute an increased understanding of the value of WFs and of the factors associated with their declining consumption by LCP.

This systematic review of 353 studies evaluates the knowledge on foraging by humans, situating it in the wider context of human ecology. We highlight the strengths and weaknesses, and the micro (individual) to macro (landscape) level implications of foraging, as concerns livelihoods and social-ecological systems. Descriptive statistics of ethnobotanical studies yielded 1410 genera foraged globally. Foraging can contribute to food and nutritional security, human health and wellbeing, adaptation to global environmental change, and good governance. Research priorities include establishing baselines for species suitability, nutritional quality and biophysical tolerance, social utility, innovation, and foraging impact. Policy recommendations include integrated spatial planning and supporting devolved local economies nested within larger governance and market frameworks to enhance human and natural capital and social cohesion. Actions to foster social-ecological resilience include improving access to forageable resources and spaces, sharing information on sustainable foraging, and landscape stewardship through sustainable foraging.

Political, economic and technological interventions are struggling to address the polycrisis at the necessary scale and pace. Increasing nature connectedness can make a critical contribution: there is abundant evidence that higher levels of nature connectedness are not only good for health and happiness, but also correlate with a greater commitment to pro-environmental behaviours. The early progress in the scientific study of nature connectedness is impressive, but there are many types of interventions promoting nature connectedness, and evidence is fragmented across academic disciplines and siloed communities of practice. Here, we review a wide range of interventions and their effectiveness relative to each other. We appraise how interventions can be combined synergistically with the potential to catalyse shifts to pro-environmental mindsets through a concept of compounding effects. We conclude by discussing how our insights may inform the development of more holistic training and development approaches, as a critical element of sustainability transformations.

The aim of this perspective is to further the discussion on regenerating our food system, by describing our future food system (FS) vision to be a regenerative, inclusive food system (RIFS) and providing guiding principles that work within an interactive dynamic framework to achieve this vision. The five RIFS principles outlined in this paper are intended to support and guide place-based processes for regenerating our FS. These are: (1) sense of place and purpose; (2) socio-ecological design for innovation; (3) building connections; (4) fair, just and inclusive transitions; and (5) design for renewal (it is a living process). The use of the five principles are at the heart of RIFS, supporting transformative, experiential learning and guiding the actions and responsibility of all actors involved in FS transformation towards RIFS. We argue that when all these principles occur in a transformation process, this provides the fertile ground for achieving a RIFS's vision.

This paper examines how coexistence with the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) has been conceived and experienced differently over time by local actors based on ethnographic data in two sites in France: the Vosges and Jura Mountains. It first explores interviewees' perceptions of the Eurasian lynx in relation to other species. It then relates them to the historical context of the Eurasian lynx's return and to the experiences of nature of each group of actors in the two study sites. Our study highlights significant divergences and convergences between actors' and groups of actors' conceptions of coexistence with the Eurasian lynx, with important implications for conservation strategies. Finally, we argue for a more pluralistic and emic approach to coexistence, considering the different ways in which coexistence is made possible by different actors.

This paper examines the EU Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR) as a novel framework aimed at promoting biodiversity, ecosystem services, sustainable forestry practices and resilient ecosystems. We highlight the Swedish forests' pivotal role in realizing the NRR goals given the substantial forest area and forest value capital, as well as the urgent need for ecological restoration, diversified forest management, and climate change adaptation in forestry. We highlight key NRR provisions, particularly Articles 4 and 12 that set quantitative restoration targets for forest habitat types and general restoration practices in forests. We note political resistance manifested in conservative interpretations that risk to compromise conservation and sustainable forest management in the future. Finally, we consider strategic, tactical, and operational NRR implementation challenges, emphasizing the importance of a comprehensive national restoration plan that integrates scientific evidence on restoration needs and the financial opportunities to secure long-term ecological and economic benefits for forest owners.

Drought and water insecurity are escalating crises that shape dryland farmers' mobility and land abandonment decisions. In this study, we appraised the causes of such decisions through 75 qualitative interviews and six group discussions with residents of rural Amazigh communities in Morocco's High Atlas. We identified a multi-faceted crises nexus, where water scarcity exacerbates economic and value-related crises and personal insecurities, leading to a crisis of confidence in traditional rural lifeways. Increasingly multi-local household structures and intersectional attributes mediate actors' experiences, as illustrated by a typology we present. While some actors experienced immobility as a hardship, other desired to stay, underscoring the continued importance of tamazirt-an Amazigh concept linking land and home-as a promising anchor for land-futures thinking. By addressing evidence gaps on the role of crises and intersectional characteristics in dryland decision-making, our study offers insights for rural development planning and policy in the southern Mediterranean.