| 1. |
- Barth, Matthias, et al.
(författare)
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Transdisciplinary learning as a key leverage for sustainability transformations
- 2023
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Ingår i: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. - 1877-3435 .- 1877-3443. ; 64
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Learning and transdisciplinary research are widely acknowledged as key components for achieving sustainability; however, the links between these concepts remain vague in the sustainability literature. Recently, emphasis has been given to transdisciplinary learning, highlighting its potential as an approach that contributes to solving real-world problems. To better understand and foster transdisciplinary learning for sustainability transformations, it is relevant to pay attention to two dimensions that define transdisciplinary learning: social interaction (individual learning in a social setting, as a group, or beyond the group), and learning forms (single-, double-, or triple-loop learning). This article introduces a conceptual framework built upon these two dimensions to understand three specific forms of transdisciplinary learning as a) individual competence development, b) experience-based collaboration, and c) societal interaction. This framework helps to clarify the design of learning processes as well as their interactions in transdisciplinary processes to support transformative change.
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| 2. |
- Burgos-Ayala, Aracely, et al.
(författare)
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Indigenous and local knowledge in environmental management for human-nature connectedness : a leverage points perspective
- 2020
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Ingår i: Ecosystems and People. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2639-5908 .- 2639-5916. ; 16:1, s. 290-303
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Indigenous peoples are key actors for environmental management because they hold valuable indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) for the sustainable stewardship of nature. However, the consideration of ILK in environmental management is still limited. We explore how environmental government institutions in Colombia have involved indigenous communities in 2212 environmental management projects between 2004 and 2015. Only 1% of these projects involved indigenous peoples as main actors. We applied the Leverage Points (LP) perspective in a content analysis to identify ‘where’ and ‘how’ these projects promote transformative changes within indigenous territories. Moreover, we investigated the interactions between projects targeting shallow and deep LP using cluster analysis. Our results show that these projects mainly seek to improve the well-being of indigenous peoples and consider ILK in their interventions, which suggests changes in deep LP. Additionally, these projects usually combined interventions targeting both shallow and deep LP while using ILK to improve environmental management practices (e.g., Life Plans) and developing participatory land-use planning in the indigenous territories. We argue that the involvement of ILK in environmental management can lead to stronger human–nature connectedness and thus to more successful conservation policies. However, this involvement is still at an early stage in Colombia.
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| 3. |
- Burgos-Ayala, Aracely, et al.
(författare)
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Integrating Ecosystem Services in Nature Conservation for Colombia
- 2020
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Ingår i: Environmental Management. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0364-152X .- 1432-1009. ; 66:2, s. 149-161
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The ecosystem services (ES) approach has been introduced in environmental policies and management to serve as a link between nature and society. Communication, education, and participation actions (CEPA) have the potential to facilitate this link. In this research, we evaluated how CEPA have been implemented in biodiversity conservation projects that consider ES. We used content analysis to review 182 biodiversity conservation projects executed by 33 environmental authorities in Colombia. We also used multiple correspondence analysis and cluster analysis to classify projects on the basis of the purpose of CEPA, type of CEPA, integration of CEPA, ES addressed, main stakeholders, and aim of conservation. We found that five aspects are key to fostering social engagement in environmental management projects: promoting explicit consideration of the ES approaches, increasing conservation efforts focused on the non-material benefits of the ES, integrating different types of CEPA, including overlooked key actors (e.g., indigenous communities and women), and developing and implementing social indicators. These considerations might lead environmental managers to revise their daily practices and, eventually, inform policies that foster an explicit link between CEPA and ES approaches.
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| 4. |
- Burgos-Ayala, Aracely, et al.
(författare)
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Lessons learned and challenges for environmental management in Colombia : The role of communication, education and participation strategies
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal for Nature Conservation. - : Elsevier GmbH. - 1617-1381 .- 1618-1093. ; 70
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Environmental management has increasingly focused on promoting social engagement in biodiversity and ecosystem services conservation as a way to foster sustainability. However, a critical challenge that still remains is the adequate implementation of strategies of communication, education, and participation (CEPA) oriented to reconnect the social and ecological dimensions in the systems. This study analyzed the main features and types of CEPA implemented by the Colombian Regional Autonomous Corporations in environmental management projects that consider ecosystem services. We found a variety of CEPA focused on a wide range of stakeholders. Communication and education were the most frequently implemented in the projects. Within communication, spreading information about the projects was the most common, while education focused on instrumental training of local communities. Participation, the less frequently implemented, mainly aimed to ensure government and decision-makers involved in the initial phases of the projects. We conclude that there is a need to increase and improve education strategies in conservation projects to make decisions based on critical and reflective thinking, and foster the engagement of a broader set of stakeholders in the processes.
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| 5. |
- Burgos-Ayala, Aracely, et al.
(författare)
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Mapping ecosystem services in Colombia : Analysis of synergies, trade-offs and bundles in environmental management
- 2024
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Ingår i: Ecosystem Services. - 2212-0416. ; 66
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ecosystem services (ES) have gained significant attention in recent years from the global environmental initiatives that involve science and policy. Multiple scholars have analyzed how ES are integrated with environmental policies, plans, and strategic assessments. However, there is a lack of information on how countries translate these policies, plans and assessments into concrete environmental management actions that integrate an explicit ES approach. To help fill this gap, we analyze how the Colombian Regional Autonomous Corporations (CARs) have used the ES approach in their environmental management projects implemented between 2004 and 2015. This study aims to analyze the type and diversity of ES managed by the CARs, as well as the synergies, trade-offs, and bundles of ES prioritized by them. We used content analysis of the CARs reports and statistical analysis to explore whether CARs explicitly use the ES concept. Our results showed that provisioning, regulating, and cultural ES were similarly prioritized by the CARs, however, explicit mention of ES was limited. Regulating services showed remarkable potential for synergies, and there was a pattern of trade-offs between cultural and some regulating and provisioning services. We found three bundles of ES: Restoration and conservation of agrosystems, Mosaic of services and Farming and fibers occupying, respectively, 9, 36 and 55% of the total area of Colombia. Our findings show that multiple ES are targeted and affected by environmental management actions. The contribution of this study has the potential to inform adequately policy decisions to be used in environmental management and planning practices to prioritize areas for maximizing ES provision.
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| 6. |
- Downing, Andrea S., et al.
(författare)
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When the whole is less than the sum of all parts – Tracking global-level impacts of national sustainability initiatives
- 2021
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Ingår i: Global Environmental Change. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 69
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are described as integrated and indivisible, where sustainability challenges must be addressed across sectors and scales to achieve global-level sustainability. However, SDG monitoring mostly focuses on tracking progress at national-levels, for each goal individually. This approach ignores local and cross-border impacts of national policies and assumes that global-level progress is the sum of national, sector-specific gains. In this study, we investigate effects of reforestation programs in China on countries supplying forest and agricultural commodities to China. Using case studies of rubber and palm oil production in Southeast Asian countries, soy production in Brazil and logging in South Pacific Island states, we investigate cross-sector effects of production for and trade to China in these exporting countries. We use a threestep multi-method approach. 1) We identify distal trade flows and the narratives used to justify them, using a telecoupling framework; 2) we design causal loop diagrams to analyse social-ecological processes of change in our case studies driven by trade to China and 3) we link these processes of change to the SDG framework. We find that sustainability progress in China from reforestation is cancelled out by the deforestation and cross-sectoral impacts supporting this reforestation abroad. Narratives of economic development support commodity production abroad through unrealised aims of benefit distribution and assumptions of substitutability of socioecological forest systems. Across cases, we find the analysed trade supports unambiguous progress on few SDGs only, and we find many mixed effects - where processes that support the achievement of SDGs exist, but are overshadowed by counterproductive processes. Our study represents a useful approach for tracking global-level impacts of national sustainability initiatives and provides cross-scale and cross-sectoral lenses through which to identify drivers of unsustainability that can be addressed in the design of effective sustainability policies.
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| 7. |
- Garau, Enrica, et al.
(författare)
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Landscape features shape people's perception of ecosystem service supply areas
- 2023
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Ingår i: Ecosystem Services. - 2212-0416 .- 2212-0416. ; 64
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Landscapes have typically been produced by varied, diverse, and long-term interactions between people and nature. However, most landscape planning and ecosystem service mapping approaches focus on the biophysical aspects of landscapes rather the social. Spatial representations of people's perceptions, mental models, and local knowledge of ecosystem services can be created using participatory mapping. This study uses participatory mapping to identify how peoples' perceptions of provisioning, regulating and cultural ecosystem service supply areas coincide or mismatch with the landscapes features of two Mediterranean river basin areas in north-eastern Catalonia, Spain. We found that the random forest and geographically weighted regression techniques are able to strongly associate landscape features with stakeholders' perceptions of ecosystem supply areas. These results demonstrate that the stakeholders associate various geographic elements with different types of ecosystem service supply areas. Visible geographical features, such as a reservoir, mountains, wetlands, showed great importance in the perception of supply areas of ecosystem services, compared to ecological or biophysical indicators, when mapping and spatially associating certain benefits to ecosystem services supply areas. These findings reveal that, often, the ecological processes and dynamics of functioning of ecosystems are invisible and not fully understood. We argue that integrating these aspects into participatory landscape planning, policies and practice can make the invisible visible and, consequently, increase the understanding for a more targeted and effective management. This could allow stakeholders to better understand the ecological processes behind the visible geographic features of the landscape, fostering a shared knowledge and better environmental management outcomes.
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| 8. |
- Guerrero Lara, Leonie, et al.
(författare)
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Flipping the Tortilla : Social-Ecological Innovations and Traditional Ecological Knowledge for More Sustainable Agri-Food Systems in Spain
- 2019
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Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 11:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The conventional dominant global agri-food system is a main driver in the Anthropocene: food production entails profound global environmental changes from greenhouse gas emissions to biodiversity loss, and shifting diets further impact planetary and human health. Innovative approaches are needed to shift towards more sustainable, equitable and healthy agri-food systems. Building on the increasing recognition of the relevance of traditional agroecological knowledge (TAeK) in sustainable food systems, this paper aims to describe innovative agri-food initiatives and explore how the use and valorization of TAeK may transform conventional agri-food systems. It employs a case-study approach in Spain, where we conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 representatives of alternative agri-food initiatives. We found that, to promote sustainable agri-food systems, TAeK has to span from farm-to-fork. Innovative agroecological practices and knowledge help to safeguard biocultural diversity, while gastronomic knowledge among consumers on how to process and prepare local varieties and species is crucial for the implementation of shorter value chains. We discuss how TAeK enhances the success of conventional systems of innovation, challenging dominant epistemological frameworks. By scaling deep (changing values), scaling out (dissemination, reproduction) and scaling up (changing institutions), the agri-food initiatives may act on leverage points to enable broader transformation of the Spanish agri-food system.
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| 9. |
- Jiménez-Aceituno, Amanda, et al.
(författare)
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Local lens for SDG implementation : lessons from bottom-up approaches in Africa
- 2020
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Ingår i: Sustainability Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1862-4065 .- 1862-4057. ; 15:3, s. 729-743
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Anthropocene presents a set of interlinked sustainability challenges for humanity. The United Nations 2030 Agenda has identified 17 specific Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a way to confront these challenges. However, local initiatives have long been addressing issues connected to these goals in a myriad of diverse and innovative ways. We present a new approach to assess how local initiatives contribute to achieving the SDGs. We analyse how many, and how frequently, different SDGs and targets are addressed in a set of African initiatives. We consider goals and targets addressed by the same initiative as interacting between them. Then, we cluster the SDGs based on the combinations of goals and targets addressed by the initiatives and explore how SDGs differ in how local initiatives engage with them. We identify 5 main groups: SDGs addressed by broad-scope projects, SDGs addressed by specific projects, SDGs as means of implementation, cross-cutting SDGs and underrepresented SDGs. Goal 11 (sustainable cities & communities) is not clustered with any other goal. Finally, we explore the nuances of these groups and discuss the implications and relevance for the SDG framework to consider bottom-up approaches. Efforts to monitor the success on implementing the SDGs in local contexts should be reinforced and consider the different patterns initiatives follow to address the goals. Additionally, achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda will require diversity and alignment of bottom-up and top-down approaches.
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| 10. |
- Lam, David P. M., et al.
(författare)
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Amplifying actions for food system transformation : insights from the Stockholm region
- 2022
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Ingår i: Sustainability Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1862-4065 .- 1862-4057. ; 17:6, s. 2379-2395
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Food is essential to people and is one of the main ways in which people are connected to the world’s ecosystems. However, food systems often cause ecosystem degradation and produce ill-health, which has generated increasing calls to transform food systems to be more sustainable. The Swedish food system is currently undergoing substantial change. A varied set of local actors have created alternative sustainability initiatives that enact new ways of doing, thinking, and organizing. These actors can increase the transformative impact of their initiatives through multiple actions and a variety of amplification processes. We analyzed the actions adopted by 29 food initiatives active in the Stockholm region using information available online. We conducted 11 interviews to better understand the amplification processes of speeding up (i.e., accelerating impact), scaling up (i.e., influencing higher institutional levels), and scaling deep (i.e., changing values and mind-sets). Our results indicated that the initiatives mainly seek to stabilize and grow their impact while changing the awareness, values, and mind-sets of people concerning the food they consume (scaling deep). However, these approaches raise new questions about whether these actions subvert or reinforce current unsustainable and inequitable system dynamics. We suggest there are distinct steps that local and regional governments could take to support these local actors via collaborations with coordinated forms of initiatives, and fostering changes at the municipality level, but these steps require ongoing, adaptive approaches given the highly complex nature of transformative change and the risks of reinforcing current system dynamics.
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| 11. |
- Palomo, Ignacio, et al.
(författare)
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Assessing nature-based solutions for transformative change
- 2021
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Ingår i: One Earth. - : Elsevier BV. - 2590-3330 .- 2590-3322. ; 4:5, s. 730-741
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global sustainability targets demand transformative changes. Nature-based solutions (NbS) are gaining traction in science and policy, but their potential for transformative change remains unexplored. We provide a framework to evaluate how NbS contribute to transformative change and apply it to 93 NbS from mountain social-ecological systems (SES). The framework serves to assess what elements may catalyze transformative change, how transformative change occurs, and what its outcomes are. Our results show that NbS are as much “people based” as “nature based.” Most NbS are based on four elements with transformation potential: nature's values, knowledge types, community engagement, and nature management practices. Our results confirm the potential of NbS for transformative change, observed through changes in non-sustainable trajectories of SES. We illustrate the components of our framework through a novel classification of NbS. The framework provides key components for assessing the effectiveness of NbS and allows tracking long-term transformative change processes.
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| 12. |
- Pereira, Laura, et al.
(författare)
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Building capacities for transformative change towards sustainability : Imagination in Intergovernmental Science-Policy Scenario Processes
- 2019
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Ingår i: Elementa. - : University of California Press. - 2325-1026. ; 7
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Scenario development has been recognized as a potential method to explore future change and stimulate a reflective process that can contribute to more informed decision-making. The assessment process under IPBES (the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) has however shown that the current predominantly biophysical and economic models and scenario processes for exploring the future of biodiversity, ecosystem services and their contributions to human wellbeing are insufficient to capture the complexity and context-specific nature of the problems facing these sectors. Several important challenges have been identified that require a more in-depth analysis of where more imaginative scenario efforts can be undertaken to address this gap. In this paper, we identify six key characteristics necessary for scenario processes: adaptability across diverse contexts, inclusion of diverse knowledge and value systems, legitimate stakeholder engagement that foregrounds the role of power and politics, an ability to grapple with uncertainty, individual and collective thinking mechanisms and relevance to policy making. We compared four cases of imaginative, arts-based scenario processes that each offer aspects of meeting these criteria. These approaches emphasise the importance of engaging the imagination of those involved in a process and harnessing it as a tool for identifying and conceptualising more transformative future trajectories. Drawing on the existing literature, we argue that there is value in fostering more inclusive and creative participatory processes that acknowledge the importance of understanding multiple value systems and relationships in order to reimagine a more inclusive and just future. Based on this, we reflect on future research to understand the transformative role that imagination can play in altering and enhancing knowledge-making for global assessments, including IPBES. We conclude that creative scenario co-development processes that promote imagination and create an opening for more empathetic responses should be considered as complementary tools within the suite of methodologies used for future IPBES scenario development.
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| 13. |
- Raudsepp-Hearne, C., et al.
(författare)
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Seeds of good anthropocenes : developing sustainability scenarios for Northern Europe
- 2020
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Ingår i: Sustainability Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1862-4065 .- 1862-4057. ; 15:2, s. 605-617
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Scenario development helps people think about a broad variety of possible futures; however, the global environmental change community has thus far developed few positive scenarios for the future of the planet and humanity. Those that have been developed tend to focus on the role of a few common, large-scale external drivers, such as technology or environmental policy, even though pathways of positive change are often driven by surprising or bottom-up initiatives that most scenarios assume are unchanging. We describe an approach, pioneered in Southern Africa and tested here in a new context in Northern Europe, to developing scenarios using existing bottom-up transformative initiatives to examine plausible transitions towards positive, sustainable futures. By starting from existing, but marginal initiatives, as well as current trends, we were able to identify system characteristics that may play a key role in sustainability transitions (e.g., gender issues, inequity, governance, behavioral change) that are currently under-explored in global environmental scenarios. We suggest that this approach could be applied in other places to experiment further with the methodology and its potential applications, and to explore what transitions to desirables futures might be like in different places.
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| 14. |
- Tuckey, Aaron J., et al.
(författare)
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What factors enable social-ecological transformative potential? The role of learning practices, empowerment, and networking
- 2023
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Ingår i: Ecology and Society. - 1708-3087. ; 28:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Achieving sustainability in the Anthropocene requires radical changes to how human societies operate. The Seeds of Good Anthropocenes (SOGA) project has identified a diverse set of existing initiatives, called “seeds,” that have the potential to catalyze transformations toward more sustainable pathways. However, the empirical investigation of factors and conditions that enable successful sustainability transformations across multiple cases has been scarce. Building on a review of existing theoretical and empirical research, we developed a theoretical framework for assessing three features identified as important to transformative potential of innovative social-ecological initiatives: (1) learning practices, (2) empowerment, and (3) networking. We applied this framework to a set of African-led and Africa-related initiatives that we selected from the SOGA database that were divided into initiatives with more or less transformative potential. We coded the presence or absence of features relating to the theoretical framework using secondary data, and then compared the initiatives using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). This analysis revealed that of the three features tested, Networking emerged as the most important feature for transformative potential when compared amongst cases. By developing and testing a framework for the comparison of cases we provide a basis for future comparative work to further identify and test properties of cases that enable transformation.
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| 15. |
- Ville, Alizée, et al.
(författare)
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What is the ‘problem’ of gender inequality represented to be in the Swedish forest sector?
- 2023
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Ingår i: Environmental Science and Policy. - : Elsevier BV. - 1462-9011 .- 1873-6416. ; 140, s. 46-55
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gender equality in natural resource management is a matter of sustainability and democracy for Sweden’s government, however the country’s forest remains a highly gender-segregated sector. We examine how gender inequality is problematized within Swedish forest and rural policy documents using the What’s the problem represented to be? (WPR) approach. We build on previous efforts to investigate gender inequality in the forest sector by expanding the critical analysis to rural development policy. We conduct interviews with forest experts, owners, and practitioners to shed light on where there are gaps within the policy representations and uncover alternative policy options that are presented. Our findings corroborate that gender inequality is represented to be a technical problem, with policy measures aiming to increase the number of women within a forest sector that continues to maintain rigid conceptions about forestry production values. While there are claims of success in the increase of women within the sector in aggregate, there is little change in the numbers of women in decision-making positions. Forest policy relies upon women to bring growth and sustainability to the forest industry, while rural policy expects women to halt rural population decline. Our findings suggest that merely trying to fit more women into a mold that has been shaped for and by inflexible forestry and masculine values is an impediment not only to gender equality but also to the inclusion of other social groups and ideas in the changing rural landscapes of Sweden.
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