| 1. |
- Blenckner, Thorsten, et al.
(författare)
-
The Baltic Health Index (BHI): Assessing the social-ecological status of the Baltic Sea
- 2021
-
Ingår i: People and Nature. - : Wiley. - 2575-8314. ; 3:2, s. 359-375
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Improving the health of coastal and open sea marine ecosystems represents a substantial challenge for sustainable marine resource management, since it requires balancing human benefits and impacts on the ocean. This challenge is often exacerbated by incomplete knowledge and lack of tools that measure ocean and coastal ecosystem health in a way that allows consistent monitoring of progress towards predefined management targets. The lack of such tools often limits capabilities to enact and enforce effective governance. We introduce the Baltic Health Index (BHI) as a transparent, collaborative and repeatable assessment tool. The Index complements existing, more ecological-oriented, approaches by including a human dimension on the status of the Baltic Sea, an ecosystem impacted by multiple anthropogenic pressures and governed by a multitude of comprehensive national and international policies. Using a large amount of social-ecological data available, we assessed the health of the Baltic Sea for nine goals that represent the status towards set targets, for example, clean waters, biodiversity, food provision, natural products extraction and tourism. Our results indicate that the overall health of the Baltic Sea is suboptimal (a score of 76 out of 100), and a substantial effort is required to reach the management objectives and associated targets. Subregionally, the lowest BHI scores were measured for carbon storage, contaminants and lasting special places (i.e. marine protected areas), albeit with large spatial variation. Overall, the likely future status of all goals in the BHI averaged for the entire Baltic Sea is better than the present status, indicating a positive trend towards a healthier Baltic Sea. However, in some Baltic Sea basins, the trend for specific goals was decreasing, highlighting locations and issues that should be the focus of management priorities. The BHI outcomes can be used to identify both pan-Baltic and subregional scale management priorities and to illustrate the interconnectedness between goals linked by cumulative pressures. Hence, the information provided by the BHI tool and its further development will contribute towards the fulfilment of the UN Agenda 2030 and its Sustainability Development Goals. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
|
|
| 2. |
- Fischer, Anke, et al.
(författare)
-
The Instagrammable outdoors – Investigating the sharing of nature experiences through visual social media
- 2021
-
Ingår i: People and Nature. - : Wiley. - 2575-8314. ; 3, s. 1244-1256
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 1. Despite the growing popularity of Instagram as a medium to portray nature and the outdoors, there remains limited research available exploring its influence on people's experiences in nature. We investigate Instagram as a three-way negotiation between users, the platform's affordances and social norms associated with both Instagram use and outdoor experiences.2. Moving beyond polarized, conceptual debates situating social media affordances within dystopias and eutopias, we provide empirical insight from the lived experiences of everyday Instagram users reflecting upon their mediated outdoor activities.3. We found that participants shared special moments, beautiful landscapes and happy memories while they struggled with notions of authenticity associated with these experiences. They perceived certain scenes as more ‘Instagrammable’ than others, and this led to sharing homogenous stories and visual representations of the outdoors.4. At the same time, participants actively reflected on this standardization and aestheticization of the landscape and their experiences, and highlighted strategies to counter this, such as actively following voices normally under-represented in media portraying outdoor activities or posting pictures that were not ‘polished’.5. We conclude that to understand modern-day interactions with nature and move beyond purely theoretical discussions about the flaws or merits of social media, we need to look at users' own strategies that integrate visual social media into their outdoor activities, while taking into account how platform features and social norms contribute to the construction of these activities
|
|
| 3. |
- Fohringer, Christian, et al.
(författare)
-
Reindeer husbandry in peril?-How extractive industries exert multiple pressures on an Arctic pastoral ecosystem
- 2021
-
Ingår i: People and Nature. - : Wiley. - 2575-8314. ; 3:4, s. 872-886
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Environmental changes and their consequences on biodiversity are known to have far-reaching effects on the resilience of animal populations and associated livelihoods around the world. To counteract negative demographic and economic effects on pastoralism, knowledge about the historical and current status of the environment is essential. In this study, we show how extractive industries, especially large-scale mining, induced a cascade of land conversions which are affecting animal populations and pastoralists' adaptive responses in northern Sweden. We examine social-ecological vulnerability in Arctic reindeer husbandry by integrating herders' knowledge, population statistics for semi-domesticated reindeer Rangifer t. tarandus, public data on socio-economic variables and geospatial tools. We determine that approximately 34% of Laevas reindeer herding community's grazing grounds are functionally unavailable to reindeer at present due to the accumulation of multiple competing land use pressures. Reindeer numbers currently only remain stable due to increased management efforts. Moreover, we identified current hotspots of high cumulative impact and mineral exploration as the spatially dominating land use factor in this area. Our approach and results provide new insights for scientifically robust cumulative impact assessments of anthropogenic stressors by creating a baseline of current developments via a combination of reindeer herder's knowledge with historical data of trends and extents of human activity over the last century.
|
|
| 4. |
- Hedlund, Johanna, et al.
(författare)
-
Policy issue interdependency and the formation of collaborative networks
- 2021
-
Ingår i: People and Nature. - : Wiley. - 2575-8314. ; 3:1, s. 236-250
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 1. Environmental problems often span a set of challenges that each may engage different policy actors across different policy domains. These challenges, or policy issues, nonetheless exhibit interdependencies that may constrain the ability of actors to work together towards joint solutions.2. Still, we have limited knowledge about whether and how policy issue interdependencies actually shape how actors collaborate.3. Using data derived from two venues for collaborative water governance in the Norrstrom basin, Sweden, we investigate whether and how policy issues and policy issue interdependencies influence actors' selection of collaborative partners. We test two alternative sets of propositions; one set assumes that partner selection is driven by actors' engagement in policy issues and their interdependencies, while the other set emphasises social positions and actor attributes.4. Our results show that in one venue, actors' choices of collaborative partner were associated with factors from both sets, but not with policy issue interdependencies specifically. In the other venue, only actor and relational attributes shaped social tie formation. These results suggest that how actors interact does not necessarily align with the policy issues and the policy issue interdependencies defined by the environmental problem they are to address.5. Our results provide an important step towards arriving at evidence-based recommendations for more effective collaborative efforts in addressing complex environmental problems that no actor can address alone
|
|
| 5. |
- Thurstan, Ruth H., et al.
(författare)
-
Envisioning a resilient future for biodiversity conservation in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic
- 2021
-
Ingår i: People and Nature. - : Wiley. - 2575-8314. ; 3:5, s. 990-1013
-
Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect societies across the world, the ongoing economic and social disruptions are likely to present fundamental challenges for current and future biodiversity conservation. We review the literature for outcomes of past major societal, political, economic and zoonotic perturbations on biodiversity conservation, and demonstrate the complex implications of perturbation events upon conservation efforts. Building on the review findings, we use six in-depth case studies and the emerging literature to identify positive and negative outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic, known and anticipated, for biodiversity conservation efforts around the world. A number of similarities exist between the current pandemic and past perturbations, with experiences highlighting that the pandemic-induced declines in conservation revenue and capacity, livelihood and trade disruptions are likely to have long-lasting and negative implications for biodiversity and conservation efforts. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic also brought about a global pause in human movement that is unique in recent history, and may yet foster long-lasting behavioural and societal changes, presenting opportunities to strengthen and advance conservation efforts in the wake of the pandemic. Enhanced collaborations and partnerships at the local level, cross-sectoral engagement, local investment and leadership will all enhance the resilience of conservation efforts in the face of future perturbations. Other actions aimed at enhancing resilience will require fundamental institutional change and extensive government and public engagement and support if they are to be realised. The pandemic has highlighted the inherent vulnerabilities in the social and economic models upon which many conservation efforts are based. In so doing, it presents an opportunity to reconsider the status quo for conservation, and promotes behaviours and actions that are resilient to future perturbation. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
|
|
| 6. |
- Woodhead, Anna J., et al.
(författare)
-
Fishers perceptions of ecosystem service change associated with climate-disturbed coral reefs
- 2021
-
Ingår i: People and Nature. - : Wiley. - 2575-8314. ; 3:3, s. 639-657
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding ecosystem service change necessitates an understanding of the social and ecological dimensions of ecosystem services and how they contribute to the well-being of different people. These empirical research gaps persist across the tropics and in coastal environments, posing a challenge for small island states that depend on ecosystem services associated with near-shore ecosystems like coral reefs. Perception-based approaches allow for a rapid appraisal of what constitutes ecosystem service change, providing insights into why these changes matter, and how experiences of change differ between individuals. To capture perceptions of change in four ecosystem services associated with coral reefs (habitat, fishery, coastal protection and recreation services), we conducted 41 semi-structured interviews with coral reef fishers from Seychelles, where reef ecosystems have been severely impacted by climate disturbance. We gathered quantitative and qualitative data to understand (a) if and what changes in reef-associated ecosystem services have been perceived; (b) if fishers' characteristics are associated with differences in perceived changes and (c) which changes matter most in fishers' lives. Using a three-dimensional approach to well-being, we sought to identify whether reasons behind the importance of change connect to fishers' well-being. There have been noticeable changes across all four ecosystem services investigated. Changes include social, ecological and behavioural dynamics. Every fisher perceived at least one ecosystem service change but fishers who dive/snorkel or work from larger boats perceived a higher number of ecosystem services to have changed. Education, age and participation in snorkelling/diving were associated with fishers who identified changing habitat services as most important, whereas fishers from families with fewer livelihood alternatives and from smaller islands identified changing fishery services as most important. Different aspects of the subjective, relational and material dimensions of well-being were implicated in why changing services matter. Despite known ecological shifts in reef condition, this research is one of few studies to empirically show how changes across multiple ecosystem services are being perceived. These perceived changes are complex, engage both the social and ecological dimensions of services, and connect in multiple ways to how fishers feel about their lives, their relationships and material well-being. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
|
|
