| 1. |
- Ekelund, Nils, et al.
(författare)
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Trends in municipal and comprehensive planning (1980-2012) from an Ecosystem Services Perspective in Southern Sweden
- 2015
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Ingår i: Book abstracts Eight International Ecosystem Services Partnership Conference 2015, Ecosystem Services for Nature, People, and Prosperity, 9-13 November 2015 Stellenbosch, South Africa. ; , s. 103-103
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In Sweden a unique project supported by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency is developed in close collaboration with seven coastal municipalities in Skåne. These municipalities face a range of different environmental challenges, from municipalities along the eastern coast line to municipalities in the western Öresund region. Research questions and approaches are built on case studies and scenarios to assess local municipality planning processes. The objective is to study the premises of implementing the use of the Ecosystem Service (ES) approach in municipal planning and decision making. This study presents a project component that focuses on the analysis of the comprehensive plans in the city of Malmö from 1980 to 2012. Interviews with staff from municipal departments were done as a complement to the collection of data from the comprehensive plans. The results show current trends in municipal and comprehensive planning from an ES perspective, i.e., the use of ES as a tool for sustainable development. The results further show that the ES concept was explicitly first found in the comprehensive plan from 2012. Implicitly, approaches for ecosystem services management and related planning changed from “land use”, “green areas” and “green space” (1980) towards “recreation” (1990) and “biological life cycle” and “biodiversity” (2000). This change indicates that the process in local municipality planning has shifted towards a more holistic view of the importance of ecosystems for a sustainable society and healthy life, which is currently further advanced via the ES concept.
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| 2. |
- Jönsson, K. Ingemar, 1959-, et al.
(författare)
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Managing the transformation – : perspectives from human evolution and human behavioral ecology
- 2015
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Transforming the current society towards sustainability is a formidable task, requiring changes at many levels of society. Reductions in our use of natural resources and environmental impacts of human societies are necessary, while maintaining a progress in satisfying human well-being in a growing world population. Considerable efforts in developing low impact economy and technology will be needed to change societies towards more sustainable social-ecological systems. However, perhaps the most challenging aspect of this transformation is to manage the very roots of the problem: the human mind. Implicit in many, if not all, of the well-known causes of environmental degradation (e.g., externalities of businesses and individual behavior, tragedy of the unmanaged commons, conspicuous consumption) are a human mind originally evolved to maximize individual reproductive success within short-sighted perspectives and small social groups. We are therefore ill equipped to take responsibility for long-term global environmental problems. We argue that an understanding of human evolution and the functioning of the brain as an adaptive unit underlying human behavior will be necessary in order to create societal reorganization and incentives that successfully deal with the challenges of the Anthropocene. Cooperation and altruistic behavior are certainly part of the human repertoire but only if social contexts are arranged to support these behaviors. We believe that evolutionary approaches to human behavior can no longer be left out of the discussion on the environmental crisis, and in environmental policy, and that managing the transformation will also require applying evolutionary science to human behavior.
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| 3. |
- Jönsson, K. Ingemar, et al.
(författare)
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Managing the transformation – : perspectives from human evolution and human behavioral ecology
- 2015
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Transforming the current society towards sustainability is a formidable task, requiring changes at many levels of society. Reductions in our use of natural resources and environmental impacts of human societies are necessary, while maintaining a progress in satisfying human well-being in a growing world population. Considerable efforts in developing low impact economy and technology will be needed to change societies towards more sustainable social-ecological systems. However, perhaps the most challenging aspect of this transformation is to manage the very roots of the problem: the human mind. Implicit in many, if not all, of the well-known causes of environmental degradation (e.g., externalities of businesses and individual behavior, tragedy of the unmanaged commons, conspicuous consumption) are a human mind originally evolved to maximize individual reproductive success within short-sighted perspectives and small social groups. We are therefore ill equipped to take responsibility for long-term global environmental problems. We argue that an understanding of human evolution and the functioning of the brain as an adaptive unit underlying human behavior will be necessary in order to create societal reorganization and incentives that successfully deal with the challenges of the Anthropocene. Cooperation and altruistic behavior are certainly part of the human repertoire but only if social contexts are arranged to support these behaviors. We believe that evolutionary approaches to human behavior can no longer be left out of the discussion on the environmental crisis, and in environmental policy, and that managing the transformation will also require applying evolutionary science to human behavior.
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| 4. |
- Schubert, Per, et al.
(författare)
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Content analysis of ecosystem service concepts in comprehensive plans for Malmö municipality in southern Sweden
- 2015
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Supported by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency a research project is developed in close collaboration with seven coastal municipalities in the county of Skåne in southern Sweden. Since the municipalities along the coastline face a range of environmental challenges, several case studies are aimed at understanding local municipality planning processes. The overall research objective is to understand the premises of implementing the Ecosystem Service (ES) approach in municipal planning and decision making. This case study examines to what extent ES concepts are accounted for in Malmö municipality comprehensive plans through a content analysis of ES concepts in the 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2012 plans. The ES concepts were categorized according to the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment into supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural services. Preliminary results show that the “ecosystem service” concept itself is not used before the 2012 comprehensive plan. Quantitative analysis of the total number of different ES concepts used in the comprehensive plans shows a large increase from 1980 to 1990 and thereafter a gradual decrease to 2000 and 2012, where 2012 is lower than 1980. The introduction of the Swedish natural resources law in 1987 could explain the peaking number in 1990. If latter comprehensive plans build upon former, the concept usage can be interpreted as increasing from 1980 and forward. These results indicate a shift into using the ES approach in municipality planning processes. Qualitative analysis shows that there is a change in the ES concepts used, e.g. “land use” and “green areas” in 1980 and “biological life cycle” and “biodiversity” in 2000 indicates a shift in municipality planning processes towards a more holistic view of the importance of ecosystems for a sustainable society and healthy life. Although somewhat uncertain, these results could indicate an introduction of the ES approach in the Malmö municipality planning processes.
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| 5. |
- Stålhammar, Sanna, et al.
(författare)
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Evolutionary psychology and contemporary behavioural framework for environmental policy
- 2015
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective: The objective of the study was to investigate the extent to which evolutionary psychology is applied in common behavioural frameworks that are used to explain, analyse and promote pro-environmental behaviour and inform environmental policy in the EU context. Such behavioural frameworks have been developed and analysed by for example the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Sustainable Practices Research Group.Methods: A review of documents was conducted that consisted of contemporary behavioural frameworks related to environmental behaviour as well as environmental policy documents within the EU. We also reviewed previous efforts to link the field of evolutionary psychology to pro-environmental behaviour.Results and Conclusions: The results show that contemporary behavioural frameworks for environmental policy lack an evolutionary perspective. Evolutionary-related behavioural theory is mentioned once, as ‘sexual signaling’ theory by the Ecologic Institute (2014). The behavioural theories informing contemporary frameworks and recommendations are predominantly drawing on the fields of social and cognitive psychology, behavioural economics and sociology. The current narrative on behaviour change is primarily focused on personal responsibility and choice, and how these are shaped by individual’s attitudes and values. We argue that an evolutionary consideration of behaviour could be beneficial when designing environmental policies that aim to take into account individuals mechanisms for motivation and behaviour. A combination of instruments that target innate psychological mechanisms could be used to promote pro-environmental behaviour and such instruments could aid policy-makers and environmental campaigners in developing strategies. The evolutionary perspective is to be regarded as a complementary framework for analysis of behavioural change and is not intended to replace the contemporary frameworks.
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| 6. |
- Stålhammar, Sanna, et al.
(författare)
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Evolutionary psychology and contemporary behavioural framework for environmental policy
- 2015
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Objective: The objective of the study was to investigate the extent to which evolutionary psychology is applied in common behavioural frameworks that are used to explain, analyse and promote pro-environmental behaviour and inform environmental policy in the EU context. Such behavioural frameworks have been developed and analysed by for example the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Sustainable Practices Research Group. Methods: A review of documents was conducted that consisted of contemporary behavioural frameworks related to environmental behaviour as well as environmental policy documents within the EU. We also reviewed previous efforts to link the field of evolutionary psychology to pro-environmental behaviour. Results and Conclusions: The results show that contemporary behavioural frameworks for environmental policy lack an evolutionary perspective. Evolutionary-related behavioural theory is mentioned once, as ‘sexual signaling’ theory by the Ecologic Institute (2014). The behavioural theories informing contemporary frameworks and recommendations are predominantly drawing on the fields of social and cognitive psychology, behavioural economics and sociology. The current narrative on behaviour change is primarily focused on personal responsibility and choice, and how these are shaped by individual’s attitudes and values. We argue that an evolutionary consideration of behaviour could be beneficial when designing environmental policies that aim to take into account individuals mechanisms for motivation and behaviour. A combination of instruments that target innate psychological mechanisms could be used to promote pro-environmental behaviour and such instruments could aid policy-makers and environmental campaigners in developing strategies. The evolutionary perspective is to be regarded as a complementary framework for analysis of behavioural change and is not intended to replace the contemporary frameworks.
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