A 1.5 °C world and healthy stratospheric ozone layer is impossible to achieve without ambitious action to reduce nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions. While N2O is currently controlled under the international climate regime, only a handful of countries have committed to reduction targets. We argue that the international community should consider controlling N2O under the Montreal Protocol, the international ozone agreement. The Montreal Protocol is widely considered the most successful international environmental agreement ever. The Protocol’s focus on production and consumption is well suited to nitrogen pollution, and it has a successful track record in the agricultural sector—N2O’s dominant source. A special report from the Protocol’s assessment panels could provide the scientific foundation for action, and an initial focus on industrial N2O could be a springboard to address additional sectors. In short, the international ozone agreement creates a unique opportunity for action on a multifaceted threat that we can no longer ignore.
In recent years, nature-based interventions (NBIs) designed to address mental wellbeing and ecological concerns have increased markedly. Yet, evaluating the efficacy of these initiatives-both as a sector and individually-often remains a challenge. In particular, despite often sharing common aims of promoting wellbeing and nature connectedness, individual initiatives are often small, fragmented, and lack the expertise that would allow for effective programme evaluation at both the sector and programme level. Fortunately, these three challenges can be easily addressed through the implementation of an evaluation tool (i.e. standardised survey and dashboard) relying upon crowdsourced data from these otherwise-fragmented initiatives. Here, we use nature connectedness data from an evaluation tool developed by Natural England as a proof-of-concept for this approach. Our illustrative findings show that by pooling data from several initiatives with common aims, the tool is able to produce useful sector-wide insights which would have been otherwise undetectable by any NBI's individual evaluation efforts due to sample size and fragmentation. In our discussion, we (a) demonstrate how the insights from our analyses are consistent with the literature (and, therefore, indicative of success as a proof-of-concept) and (b) discuss how the tool can be enhanced and best implemented for practical benefit to individual programmes and the sector. We also provide an improved version of the standardised survey used for the present illustration in supplemental material.
The current ecological crisis asks for system-wide transformation toward more sustainable views, structures and practices. Recognition and integration of the plural ways people value nature, including intrinsic, instrumental and relational values, is one of the key aspects of this transformative change. To achieve this, diverse societal actors should participate in decision-making processes of environmental policies. We highlight a form of participation that thus far has not been explicitly linked to plural valuation: citizen science. In this perspective, we demonstrate that citizen science–diverse initiatives where citizens participate in knowledge generation processes—is a space where plural values of nature are articulated, practiced and fostered. Based on four values-centered leverage points, we show potential benefits and areas of advance that integrating citizen science in plural valuation offers for required system-wide transformative change. Finally, we provide recommendations toward fully leveraging the potential of citizen science for plural valuation of nature.
Climate change is expected to cause latitudinal and elevational shifts in where crops can grow, with major consequences for land use, rural livelihoods and biodiversity. Shifts in agroforestry systems can be especially transformative, as this alters tree cover. We used semi-structured interviews and vegetation surveys to investigate the patterns, drivers, consequences and future trajectories of an upward shift of Arabica coffee agroforestry within its native range in the Afromontane mountains. We observed a climate-, income- and crop raiding-driven upward shift of coffee production into a novel elevational range, with positive feedback mechanisms enhancing the future adoption of agroforestry. Forest and open-land-derived agroforests showed similar woody plant species richness and large overlaps in community composition. Open-land-derived coffee agroforestry is, and is expected to increasingly be, the dominant coffee agroforestry type in the novel range, with positive implications for tree cover, biodiversity and ecosystem services in one of the world's biodiversity hotspots.
The notion of people and nature as intertwined and embedded in the biosphere is gaining traction in contemporary scientific discourses. But what does it mean for a human being to be intertwined? Here, we explore this question through two lenses: looking at the human body as an open living system in continuous exchange with the chemical elements on Earth; and looking across the biosphere, at the intricate functioning of the web of life in mediating these exchanges. The first lens focuses on relationships between chemical elements and life processes within us humans, relationships that are critical for our bodies to operate and function. We then expand the perspective to show how microorganisms, fungi, plants, and animals in ecosystems shape and mediate the elemental flows through the air, water, and food that our bodies require for survival. The two lenses highlight that humans have evolved as part of, and remain integrated with, these complex and dynamic life–element interdependencies, spanning all scales and domains across the biosphere. In the Anthropocene, humans remain as bodily dependent on life-mediated elemental cycles as ever, irrespective of culture, economic development, or technological advances. This inseparability reflects the core reality of existing in the biosphere, with implications for how to approach and understand human–environment relations and confront the challenges of the Anthropocene. It further implies that biosphere stewardship is not only a cognitive or ethical orientation, but also an embodied practice: one that involves learning about, caring for, and enhancing the living relations that mobilise, regenerate, and circulate life-sustaining elements.
In light of growing mental health challenges globally, understanding the positive impacts of nature on mental wellbeing is more important than ever. However, the impacts of one of the most common intentional human–wildlife interactions, feeding wild birds, are not well understood. We surveyed 3658 participatory scientists in the USA and Canada who take part in Project FeederWatch to examine associations between wellbeing and bird feeding. Quantitative data showed that most respondents thought feeding and observing birds had a positive impact on their wellbeing over six months of participation, even when other events in their lives did not. Qualitative data revealed that feeding and observing birds positively impacted respondent wellbeing through their emotions, engagement with the activity, and creating a sense of meaning. These findings suggest linkages between bird feeding and positive mental health, while underscoring a need for further research on the mechanisms through which these linkages operate.
Integrating ecological trap theory and niche construction reveals a specific and underexamined category: self-induced traps, in which an organism’s own construction decouples the cues guiding its choices from outcomes. Self-induced traps are expected to be rare because selection eliminates construction when costs rebound on the constructor. Traps persist when costs escape this correction, being delayed in time, displaced onto others or other geographies, or hidden below thresholds. Humans are distinctive because our construction extends to the information environment: We build not only the material conditions that degrade outcomes but also the signal environment through which those outcomes would need to be detected. This creates a stacked trap in which proxy rewards reinforce engagement while viability feedback is blocked. Applied to the Anthropocene traps that define the polycrisis, the framework supplies the perceptual mechanism sustaining lock-in and frames solutions towards repairing cue–outcome relationships at the environmental level.
Forestry is commonly framed through biophysical metrics - canopy cover, timber yields, carbon stocks - defined by global standards that travel into national policies. These definitions frequently displace the lived landscapes in which forests are sustained. This perspective article argues for a conceptual shift: recognizing the everyday work of care and organizing - often unpaid, often feminized, that bring into being and sustain forest landscapes - as central to forest governance. Drawing on research across the Global South and North, I show how technocratic forest definitions and program architectures overlook social reproduction, spiritual values, and affective ties, thereby fueling conflict, eroding legitimacy, and weakening outcomes. I propose an agenda for just forestry that (i) values care work in forests and communities, (ii) recognizes informal organizing in decision-making, (iii) embraces plural values associated with forestry, and (iv) adopts a systemic lens that entails coordination with sectors beyond forestry as well as across scales, from local governance to international climate programs. Reframing forests as lived landscapes - entangled with everyday practices, identities, and relationships - does more than correct blind spots - it offers practical pathways for durable stewardship under climate and biodiversity crises.
Increasingly frequent and intense floods, driven by climate change in Poland, highlight the need to raise public awareness of their causes, impacts, and adaptation strategies, with education playing a key role. A survey among over 200 final-year engineering students at the Cracow University of Technology examined attitudes toward climate change, floods, and adaptation measures. Results showed that 89
Illegal wildlife trade is often male dominated at harvest, yet women's roles across supply chains are under-examined. This study adds substantially to this growing body of knowledge drawing on 112 semi-structured interviews with law enforcement and illegal wildlife trade experts in South Africa, Hong Kong, and Canada. We show women participate in finance and money laundering, brokerage, logistics, retail, online marketing, and couriering, with occasional leadership. Women are also strategically used to shield men. Drawing on conservation and feminist criminology-specifically women's liberation and strain/marginalization perspectives-alongside an intersectional framework, we interpret role differentiation across contexts. While perceptions-based data and male-dominated enforcement may bias visibility, patterns are consistent. We recommend gender-competent, intersectional counter-illegal wildlife trade strategies and better gender-disaggregated data.
Rural sustainability policies often fail in territories shaped by ecological variability and mobile livelihoods, as they assume stability, fixed land use, and technical control. This article examines transhumant goat pastoralism in Malargüe, Argentine Andes, as a situated response to uncertainty and a source of insights for sustainability governance. Based on seven years of ethnographic research, we analyze how pastoralist families sustain livelihoods, manage common resources, and reproduce territorial relations through seasonal mobility, collective care, and vernacular commoning. Rather than treating mobility as a constraint, we show how transhumant practices constitute a decentralized form of ecological governance aligning production and resource management with environmental variability. Transhumant pastoralism operates as a sufficiency-oriented socio-ecological economy capable of inhabiting uncertainty without enclosure or stabilization. By foregrounding commoning and mobility as governance practices, the article contributes to sustainability transitions debates and offers transferable lessons for designing policies better suited to uncertain, climate-sensitive rural territories.
How close are we to achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs)? No one really knows. As the world enters the countdown to 2030, uncertainty remains. Progress remains fragmented, hindered by data gaps, opaque governance, and politicization that limits scientific communication and real-time policy adaptation. Limitations reveal the need to rethink how sustainability is measured, reported, and governed. Using the SDGs, we argue that monitoring systems fail to capture real-time dynamics, leaving humanity rudderless amid sustainability crises. In an era of big data, future sustainability agendas must evolve into adaptive, data-integrated frameworks capable of continuous feedback and adjustment. However, weaknesses in progress measurement and reporting are not only technical. They also reflect data politics, because decisions over which indicators count, who produces them, how they are validated, and whose infrastructures and funding sustain them are shaped by power relations that may influence what becomes visible and what remains unmeasured.
Collaboration and spanning boundaries across parties is needed in climate adaptation planning to combat the impacts of climate change. Spatial designers are amongst the professionals that take up boundary spanning activities in these kinds of complex planning contexts. However, boundary spanning work and opportunities are conditioned by many external factors. Building on existing insights in boundary spanning literature, this study investigated the environmental, organizational and program-related conditions for boundary spanning by spatial designers in two climate adaptation planning programs: Sigmaplan in Belgium and Rebuild by Design in New York/New Jersey (USA). A devastating climate event, a dominant or changing policy paradigm, and the physical and institutional setting emerged as influential environmental conditions for boundary spanning in climate adaptation programs. Boundary spanning by spatial designers was strongly determined by the structure and design of the program, and by the role and the position of the designers within the program.
Human–wildlife interactions present both challenges and opportunities across Europe. Managing these interactions often requires decisions that fall between reactive (taking action after a problem arises) and proactive (anticipating and preventing negative impacts) management. This study examines factors influencing public attitudes toward proactive and reactive wildlife management in six European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom), based on an online survey of 2400 participants. We relied on the cognitive hierarchy framework to explain relationships between management attitudes and factors such as wildlife value orientations, risk perceptions, and perceptions of red deer (Cervus elaphus L.). Attitudes toward wildlife management were generally shaped by value orientations and risk perception. Mutualism was associated with support for proactive wildlife and human protection, whereas domination was associated with reactive and proactive management aimed at protecting human interests. Higher perceived risk further increased support for proactive management strategies. These results provide practical insights into how public attitudes relate to wildlife management.
Romania hosts one of Europe’s largest brown bear populations, but rising human-bear encounters and related casualties raise concerns about their drivers and future population management. Using >10 000 encounter reports (2019–2024) in a hierarchical occupancy model accounting for detection processes, we show that bear presence in human-dominated spaces is linked to food conditioning, habituation, and shaped by historical management. Bears occur more often in high wildland-urban interface areas, especially those closer to communist-era elite-hunting grounds with feeding sites. These patterns reflect a long-term legacy of 1960s population management policies interacting with environmental and behavioral processes to shape recent bear behavior. We call for management addressing ecological and social sustainability by phasing out supplemental feeding, reducing habituation and food conditioning, improving public knowledge of bear ecology, and recognizing historical legacies to promote coexistence.
The exploitation of wildlife for meat consumption—both legal and illegal—poses major conservation, animal welfare, and public health risks. While scholarship often centers on CITES-listed species, non-CITES species remain underexamined. Focusing on the trade in civets and bamboo rats in Vietnam, this study examines the illegal trade embedded within ostensibly legal businesses using crime script analysis (CSA) to map it through two complementary scripts, one farm-based and one restaurant-based. Drawing on 107 interviews and direct observations, findings reveal that more than half of surveyed facilities (34/63) acknowledged illegal sourcing; eight farms operated outside the regulatory system or maintained unregistered satellite locations; two-thirds of registered farms had earlier operated unregistered; and logbook manipulation was widespread. Ritualized inspections and facilitation payments compounded lax oversight. These procedural dynamics provide a foundation for targeted interventions essential to conservation and zoonotic disease surveillance within a One Health framework.
India’s rising human–leopard conflict has prompted the government to adopt immune contraceptives to manage leopard populations. The decision has sparked debate among wildlife experts and conservation organisations, government officials, and local communities. Here, I discuss the ecological and ethical implications of this intervention and highlight alternative, coexistence-based approaches that recognise both humans and wildlife as stakeholders within shared socio-ecological systems.
In this article, I approach online civic discussion as an important form of public debate that reflects and supplements the official forest discussion. I identify the shared beliefs and belief-based structures within the Finnish online forest-related debate among participating citizens. In addition, I examine the extent to which these identified structures reflect the established forestry and preservation positions and paradigms of the official discussion. A range of online user discussions about forests from five Finnish-language platforms in 2023 are subjected to multiphase qualitative and quantitative analyses. Based on these analyses, three key belief structures are identified: a preservation-positive structure, a forestry-positive structure and a compromise-seeking structure. These structures both reflect and challenge the established positions of the official Finnish forest discussion and, interestingly, reveal the importance of online discussions as an arena for critique and fundamental value-based debate.
Photovoltaic power generation provides a promising solution of future energy supply to achieve carbon neutrality. The rapid expansion of ground-mounted photovoltaic solar panels, however, has aroused concerns of potential negative impacts on ecosystems. Based on a global meta-analysis of paired field observations across 55 sites, we show that solar panels exert divergent impacts on aboveground biomass in the under-panel areas compared with the gap areas dependent on the trade-off between a shading effect and altered water relations. Specifically, solar panels on average cause a significant decrease in under-panel aboveground biomass by 38
This study examines The Sound, a strait between Denmark and Sweden protected by a trawl ban since 1932. Consistent with previous research, we show that the area supports greater densities, sizes, and landings of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) than adjacent trawled waters. Simulations from a bespoke food web model indicate that predation from the cod can suppress mesopredators, thus reducing filamentous algal growth through a trophic cascade, which benefits eelgrass (Zostera marina). In line with this, monitoring data show lower mesopredator densities and more extensive eelgrass meadows in The Sound compared with nearby trawled areas, although salinity and hydrodynamic conditions could also contribute. However, despite the trawl ban, adult cod densities are currently at their lowest levels since monitoring started, raising concerns about the ecosystem's long-term resilience. Model results further demonstrate how preserving eelgrass meadows benefits cod, illustrating feedback mechanisms that highlight the importance of integrated fisheries and conservation management.
