On private or community land, urban forest patches are often overlooked but are critical green spaces that provide opportunities for transformative connections between humans and wild nature for local communities and ecosystems. Urban silviculture is an emergent land management practice that is best achieved as a transdisciplinary science, incorporating the knowledge and work of scientists, land managers, landscape designers, policymakers, and local residents to define problems, set long‐term goals, build partnerships, and realize solutions. The case study of Stillmeadow PeacePark, located on the grounds of Stillmeadow Community Fellowship church in Baltimore, Maryland, illustrates the potential for transdisciplinary co‐production of urban silviculture in the US and more broadly. This approach offers new insights into fundamental social–ecological processes and can address press and pulse disturbances at multiple scales. Developing community‐driven transdisciplinary science can be a way to create opportunities for restoration work in communities that have historically been excluded from financial investment and technical services.
Ongoing extinctions are often accelerated by humans intentionally killing nonhumans. Commonly in Western conservation thinking, killing is seen as a strategy to prevent extinction. The hypothesis that killing one animal can protect the survivors of the same species (conspecifics) requires a direct cause‐and‐effect mechanism between the death of the target and the outcomes or consequences for the surviving conspecifics. Otherwise, an indirect pathway with an additional step must be described and evaluated. We find rare direct (that is, one‐step) causal logic to support the “kill one to save many conspecifics” idea. Rare circumstances involve threats posed by the animal killed. To explore the more likely indirect (two‐step) causal logic, we describe the study designs needed for comparative evaluations of killing versus non‐lethal alternatives. For practitioners seeking science‐informed decisions, our analysis clearly indicates a gap in the available data and a narrow set of conditions in which one should “kill a few to save many conspecifics”.
Unprecedented environmental changes challenge our understanding of the natural world, yet critical environmental decisions are made every day. Ecological forecasting provides a mechanism to inform science‐based decision‐making amid accelerating environmental uncertainties by using foundational forecasting principles to anticipate ecological unknowns. However, as an emerging and interdisciplinary field, ecological forecasting lacks unified terminology, limiting cohesion and hindering communication across other forecasting subdisciplines. Here, we examined current use of common forecasting terms by surveying forecasting professionals ( n = 109) and synthesizing literature trends (Scopus; 1970–2025) and internet search queries (Google Trends; 2004–2024). Our results informed the development of standardized definitions for “forecast”, “prediction”, and “projection”, and illuminated a disconnect between the goal of aiding decision‐making and the inclusion of decision science in the forecasting process. This work promotes participation and growth in ecological forecasting, helping forecasters meet priority end goals by facilitating communication across forecasting disciplines and within forecasting processes.
