The terms "transition" and "transformation" are frequently used to describe systemic and sustainable change. However, their conceptual boundaries remain ambiguous. While some studies suggest semantic overlap, others emphasize subtle distinctions. Nonetheless, few have examined their mutual contributions when used jointly. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of food systems literature that distinguishes between the two terms. Two key findings emerge: semantic duality persists, with "transition" exhibiting conceptual stability and "transformation" encompassing diversity, and their relationship follows three patterns: complementary, nested, or independent. Our results suggest that "transformation" supports the cross-fertilization of research on sustainable and systemic changes by engaging with underexplored themes in Sustainability Transition Research, such as power relations, politics, normativity, governance, social movements, culture, paradigms, and systemic and transdisciplinary approaches. The flexibility of "transformation" offers both an opportunity for rupture and progress toward sustainability, and a risk of dilution, underscoring the need for continued clarification of the concept.

Mangroves are vital coastal ecosystems that provide critical services and support millions of livelihoods worldwide. However, they are increasingly threatened by climate change and anthropogenic pressures. Resilience refers to the capacity of social-ecological systems to absorb disturbances, adapt to change, and maintain their core functions. In mangrove ecosystems, such assessments are particularly important given the multiple environmental and socio-economic pressures affecting these coastal systems. Most existing resilience assessment methods often overlook the interconnectedness of mangroves as part of social-ecological systems, focusing on either ecological or social dimensions in isolation. This study introduces the Mangrove Social-Ecological Resilience Appraisal (MaSERA), a novel interdisciplinary methodological framework designed to assess the resilience of mangroves by integrating plant, fish and human components alongside their systemic interactions. The framework distinguishes between specific variables linked to individual components, and systemic variables capturing interactions and governance dynamics. Rather than using composite indices, MaSERA advocates for detailed and context-sensitive assessments of resilience. The flexibility of the framework allows adaptation to diverse settings while enabling cross-regional comparisons through a core set of recommended variables and indicators. MaSERA offers a practical tool for scholars, conservationists, and policymakers to identify factors that enable or erode mangrove resilience to promote sustainability.

Around the world, many environmental and social problems often appear together, such as biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and livelihood precarity. Integrated landscape approaches have emerged as a powerful way to tackle these intertwined crises at the scale of whole landscapes, but success depends on a factor often overlooked: the motivation of people to collaborate. The objective of this study is to review and synthesize the available scientific evidence of the reasons why actors choose to collaborate in multifunctional protected landscapes. Building on existing literature, we developed an analytical framework that views collaboration as a dynamic interplay between actor-level motivators (ranging from non-material relations to nature, community or organizational ties, to material benefits) and network-level motivators (shared goals, interdependence, trusted networks, effective interactions, and clear achievements). These drivers are further shaped by broader forces such as agency, legal frameworks, social and political context, the socioeconomic conditions, and biophysical contexts. Our findings reveal a crucial insight: sustainable collaboration cannot rest on a single motivator, such as financial gain, but thrives when a "bundle of motivators" is activated. To help organizations unlock this potential, we identify seven practical levers to strengthen collaboration and maximize the impact of integrated landscape approaches. By understanding and intentionally fostering these layered motivations, landscape management can move from fragmented efforts to transformative, long-term solutions for both people and nature.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the vulnerability of supply chains, bringing the possibility of disruptions to the forefront as a major concern (UN in The impact of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition. https://in.one.un.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/SG-Policy-Brief-on-COVID-Impact-on-Food-Security.pdf , 2020). The blockage of the Suez Canal by the Evergreen ship in 2021 and the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022 further intensified issues in food markets and increased food insecurity. These incidents underscore the fragility of our global food systems. Moreover, a paradigm shift is crucial to address the unprecedented loss of biodiversity (IPBES in Communiqué de presse: Le dangereux déclin de la nature: Un taux d’extinction des espèces « sans précédent » et qui s’accélère. https://ipbes.net/news/Media-Release-Global-Assessment-Fr , 2019) and climate change (IPCC in AR6 climate change 2021: the physical science basis. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ , 2021). Additionally the well-established link between obesity, undernutrition, and climate change (Swinburn et al. in Lancet, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32822-8 ) underscores the necessity for a fundamental transformation in our food production systems. To address this, we need food systems that are both robust and adaptable, capable of enduring health crises, geopolitical tensions, and the challenges posed by climate change, declining biodiversity, soil depletion, and the difficulties faced by farmers. This special feature presents a collection of research papers that investigate re-territorialisation and alternative food networks in Europe. The contributions stemming from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, such as sociology, anthropology, geography, and economic sciences, highlight not only the complexity of changes in food systems, but also their multifaceted nature. While re-territorialisation is already in progress, it would greatly benefit from proactive policies that support both the desire and the necessity for change.

Climate change and the alteration of land-use and land-cover (LULC) on a global scale presents a notable threat to biodiversity, with a particular impact on long-distance migratory birds. Nonetheless, our comprehension of how these changes specifically affect these avian migrants remains limited. To address this knowledge gap, species distribution models offer a valuable tool as they allow for projecting habitat suitability and provide insights into a species’ ecological responses to changing environmental conditions. In this study, we utilize modelled climate and LULC data spanning from 2015 to 2100, coupled with GPS tracking data and open-source occurrence data of European Nightjars (Caprimulgus europaeus), to assess how suitable habitat might be affected by changes in climate and LULC under different emission and socio-economic scenarios. Our models show that climate change alone may expand suitable habitat, particularly under high-emission scenarios, while LULC change generally exerts a constraining effect across annual cycle stages. While some scenarios indicate overall stability in the amount of suitable habitat, our spatially explicit results reveal that these entail substantial redistribution of suitable habitat which may disrupt migration patterns and increase energetic costs. Our findings underscore the importance of explicitly considering spatial and temporal aspects in assessments of global change impacts on migratory species and highlight the need for targeted conservation interventions in critical stopover zones to safeguard the species' future amidst global environmental change.

In Northwestern Europe, while market gardening farms mostly align with agroecological principles, their viability is questioned. Conducted as part of a Participatory Action Research, our study explores the viability of 18 market gardeners in Coeur de Condroz (Belgium). Through semi-structured interviews, we identified four factors (i.e. working conditions, collaboration among farmers, distribution channel choice, and farmers' aspirations) and five systemic issues (i.e. land availability, skilled workforce scarcity, inadequate training, consumer behavior, and lack of political recognition) affecting the viability of market gardening farms. Our results highlight the value of approaches incorporating farmers' perspectives to study and support agroecological supply chains.

Protected areas play a key role in conserving biodiversity, yet they increasingly face the challenge of balancing wildlife conservation with rising recreational use. Understanding how wildlife responds to human activity across space and time is therefore crucial to support coexistence. We used camera trap and visitor data to examine how recreational trail density, weekend visitation peaks, and landscape configuration influence spatiotemporal behaviour of roe deer, wild boar, and red fox in the densely visited Hoge Kempen National Park, Belgium. Despite a doubling of on-trail visitation during weekends, activity patterns of wildlife remained unchanged. Moreover, trail density negatively affected wildlife detection rates, but did not differ between weekdays and weekends, indicating that short-term increases in visitor numbers did not alter species’ responses to recreational infrastructure. Instead, wildlife responses to trail density were mediated by landscape configuration: while roe deer and wild boar were more frequent in forest interiors and red fox in open areas, the negative effect of trail density was strongest in open landscapes and declined progressively with distance into forest interiors, becoming negligible deep in forested areas. These findings demonstrate that in densely visited protected areas, landscape configuration, rather than short-term visitor peaks, mediates wildlife responses to recreational infrastructure.

Scientific, political and civil society discourses agree that to foster the needed agroecological transition, agricultural diversification is a central element. In this study, we make use of qualitative analysis to examine the visions on agricultural diversification, held by a diversity of actors (farmers, elected officials, civil society, agricultural advisors). The Bauges, a territory located in the French Alps, specialises strongly in extensive dairy cattle breeding to produce Tome des Bauges PDO cheese. This dairy system is, however, increasingly vulnerable to climate change, particularly to droughts. In addition, there is a growing discourse on food autonomy and diversified production. We show that six visions on agricultural diversification, referring to different spatial levels, coexist among the interviewed actors. Two groups of actors can be distinguished based on their vision for, among others, the future of dairy cattle breeding in the Bauges, the possibility of developing other productions, the perimeter for food autonomy and the form of agriculture ecologisation. These two groups tend to oppose conventional breeders, natives of the Bauges, to civil society organisations including neo-resident and diversified farmers in organic farming including neo-rural and “left-returned” farmers. Moreover, the analysis shows that some actors hold plural visions, and that those actors can play different intermediary roles. Thus, to initiate sustainable transformation dynamics at the territorial level, an important step seems to be to highlight these different visions to facilitate dialogue and increase mutual understanding.

The nitrogen (N) cycle is a familiar concept. As is the much simplified, often diagrammatic, representation commonly used to illustrate the scale, importance and interconnectedness of this global cycle that links air, water, rocks and living beings. However, in this representation, humans are often presented as a seemingly minor entity or not explicitly shown at all. This can obscure the idea that humanity is both a direct beneficiary of the nitrogen cycle (through food and resources) and an increasingly significant influence on its function. This study sought to understand how diverse Human-Nature relationships (HNR) are expressed in recent academic literature on the nitrogen cycle. A sample of peer-reviewed literature, containing explicit and inferred examples of HNR and the nitrogen cycle, was analysed using two approaches: 1) network analysis, identifying and illustrating all quantifiable links made between components of the nitrogen cycle, and 2) content analysis to understand how different kinds of terminology were being used to describe relationships between components in the cycle. The network analysis revealed diverse links between ‘human’ and ‘non-human nature’. The content analysis found some explicit use of relational terms, most commonly ‘depend*’. Both approaches highlighted strongly reciprocal links within the ‘human’ realm and the explicit centrality in which this is held across the corpus. We demonstrate the utility of combining quantitative and qualitative analysis to understand nuanced relationships in the nitrogen cycle and explore the utility this has to increase the acknowledgement and appreciation of HNR in science communication and science-policy interface work.

The Values Assessment (VA) of the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services shows that while a wide range of valuation methods exist to include nature's values in diverse decision-making contexts, uptake of these methods remains limited. Building on the VA, this paper reviews five critical steps in the evaluation of project or policy proposals that can improve the inclusion of nature's values in decisions. Furthermore, improving valuation practice requires guidelines that utilise quality criteria for valuation of nature and ensure a balance between them. This paper proposes three such quality criteria: relevance, robustness and resource efficiency. The paper argues that the five steps and three Rs can generate a practical checklist to support commissioning, evaluation and performance of more plural valuations. Such guidelines can provide the next steps needed to improve uptake of nature valuation in decision-making.

Participatory approaches are widely used in ecosystem services (ES) research. They are particularly advocated for situations characterized by complexity, uncertainties and multiple values. However, behind the intention to do participatory research on ES, there is likely a wide range of practices. In this paper, we undertook a systematic literature review to examine how participatory ES research is implemented in practice. Drawing on 93 reviewed articles, we explore how - and how far - various practices elicit and consider different types of uncertainties related to ES, namely ethical uncertainties (plurality of worldviews, values and interests), epistemic uncertainties (multiple representations) and radical uncertainties (unpredictability). Our review shows a high level of diversity of methods within participatory ES research. Three main types of studies were identified: (1) those centered on socio-cultural valuation of ES, that acknowledge plurality of specific values; (2) those describing more scientific driven processes focusing on assessments of representations of ES dynamics, that partially acknowledge epistemic uncertainties; and (3) those (less numerous) describing more deliberative and collective processes, that navigate all uncertainty types, including plurality of interests, plurality of knowledge systems and radical uncertainties. In total, three main conclusions are drawn from this work. First, plurality of worldviews is seemingly not a strong concern for participatory ES research. This lends credence to concerns that ES framings may encourage a dualistic, anthropocentric and utilitarian framing of nature. Second, although a plurality of specific ES values were generally considered, conflicts of interests and trade-offs between these were much less often considered, which potentially reflects a lack of connection of participatory ES research to real life decision making and a limited ability to navigate power asymmetries and strategic political agendas. Third, while there was often appraisal of non-scientific stakeholders' representations of ES dynamics, radical uncertainties and differences between scientific and non-scientific representations were rarely addressed. This suggests that participatory ES research remains largely anchored in a Western science's positivist stance.

OPINION article Front. Allergy, 02 February 2023Sec. Environmental & Occupational Determinants Volume 4 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/falgy.2023.1063982

Twenty-five years since foundational publications on valuing ecosystem services for human well-being 1 , 2 , addressing the global biodiversity crisis 3 still implies confronting barriers to incorporating nature’s diverse values into decision-making. These barriers include powerful interests supported by current norms and legal rules such as property rights, which determine whose values and which values of nature are acted on. A better understanding of how and why nature is (under)valued is more urgent than ever 4 . Notwithstanding agreements to incorporate nature’s values into actions, including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) 5 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals 6 , predominant environmental and development policies still prioritize a subset of values, particularly those linked to markets, and ignore other ways people relate to and benefit from nature 7 . Arguably, a ‘values crisis’ underpins the intertwined crises of biodiversity loss and climate change 8 , pandemic emergence 9 and socio-environmental injustices 10 . On the basis of more than 50,000 scientific publications, policy documents and Indigenous and local knowledge sources, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) assessed knowledge on nature’s diverse values and valuation methods to gain insights into their role in policymaking and fuller integration into decisions 7 , 11 . Applying this evidence, combinations of values-centred approaches are proposed to improve valuation and address barriers to uptake, ultimately leveraging transformative changes towards more just (that is, fair treatment of people and nature, including inter- and intragenerational equity) and sustainable futures.

Long-distance migrants are constrained by widely separated hospitable habitats in geographically isolated locations, making them vulnerable to environmental change, both through natural and anthropogenic causes. Knowledge about their resource selection decisions is imperative to understand the drivers of their declines. The distinct periods within an annual cycle, when individuals experience different environmental circumstances, are inextricably linked through carry-over effects which can have important consequences for the individual, and consequently the population. In this study, we employ precise archival GPS-tracking data of European Nightjars (Caprimulgus europaeus) and high-resolution global land cover data to examine habitat selection during the sedentary wintering and breeding periods, as well as during autumn and spring migration, using a correlational approach. We demonstrate how nightjars use general habitat characteristics, such as landscape diversity, for high-order habitat selection, while resource selection at a finer spatial scale is reliant on fine-scale variables related to a habitat’s suitability, such as surface area of grassland and shrubland. We show that nightjars favour spatially diverse landscapes, which allows them to minimize time spent searching for optimal habitats. The considerable variation in the drivers of habitat selection between and within seasons shows how anthropogenic land-use change can have an array of different impacts on migrants by influencing large- and fine-scale habitat selection. This study shows the advantages of an individual based GPS-tracking approach, combined with high spatial resolution remote sensing data, and highlights the need for full annual-cycle research on scale dependent habitat selection of long-distance avian migrants.

The Values Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services shows that multiple valuation methods and approaches exist to assess diverse value types. The evidence is based on the largest review of academic valuation studies on nature to date, developed for the Values Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). We evaluate studies according to environmental justice criteria. The results suggest that although diverse value types and indicators are assessed across studies, few individual studies are plural, and studies fail to provide evidence on distributive justice and score low on procedural justice indicators. We provide a set of recommendations for incorporating issues of justice in the design of valuation studies.

There is a pressing need for transformative change, with a vision of long-term human well-being within planetary boundaries. The lack of progress—despite increasing awareness and action—illustrates how challenging it is to foster change in our complex global society. Education and learning are needed to enable change. Transdisciplinary learning, which meaningfully integrates diverse knowledge and perspectives, contributes to developing an integrative understanding—a necessity for tackling complex challenges. We explore how transdisciplinary learning for early-career researchers can foster transformative change and lead to increased biodiversity conservation. This paper focuses on a case study of the authors’ shared experiences during the 2021 Alternet Summer School, which focused on transformative change for biodiversity conservation and human well-being. In this introspective research, we gained insights through an online survey for participants and organizers of the summer school ( n = 27). Using qualitative content analysis, we identify seven crucial elements of transdisciplinary learning which can lead to transformative change on (a) a personal level, as the learning process shifts values and helps researchers identify their roles; (b) a research level, by rethinking science and providing tools for transdisciplinary approaches, and (c) a societal level, by moving from the individual to the collective and constructing a shared vision for a sustainable future. Participants highlighted how changes on all these levels could benefit biodiversity conservation. These insights point to the benefit of transdisciplinary learning opportunities that empower young researchers to take up their part in fostering transformative change.

This paper critically examines the current political context in which valuation studies of nature are undertaken. It challenges the belief that somehow, more and technically better valuation will drive the societal change toward more just and sustainable futures. Instead, we argue that current and proposed valuation practices risk to continue to overrepresent the values of those who hold power and dominate the valuation space, and to perpetuate the discrimination of the views and values of nondominant stakeholders. In tackling this politically sensitive issue, we define a political typology of valuations, making explicit the roles of power and discrimination. This is done to provide valuation professionals and other actors with a simple framework to determine if valuation actions and activities are constructive, inclusive, resolve injustices and enable systemic change, or rather entrench the status quo or aggravate existing injustices. The objective is to buttress actors in their decisions to support, accept, improve, oppose, or reject such valuations.

Green space could influence adult cognition and childhood neurodevelopment , and is hypothesized to be partly driven by epigenetic modifications. However, it remains unknown whether some of these associations are already evident during foetal development. Similar biological signals shape the developmental processes in the foetal brain and placenta.Therefore, we hypothesize that green space can modify epigenetic processes of cognition-related pathways in placental tissue, such as DNA-methylation of the serotonin receptor HTR2A. HTR2A-methylation was determined within 327 placentas from the ENVIRONAGE (ENVIRonmental influence ON early AGEing) birth cohort using bisulphite-PCR-pyrosequencing. Total green space exposure was calculated using high-resolution land cover data derived from the Green Map of Flanders in seven buffers (50 m-3 km) and stratified into low (<3 m) and high (≥3 m) vegetation. Residential nature was calculated using the Land use Map of Flanders. We performed multivariate regression models adjusted for several a priori chosen covariables. For an IQR increment in total green space within a 1,000 m, 2,000 m and 3,000 m buffer the methylation of HTR2A increased with 1.47% (95%CI:0.17;2.78), 1.52% (95%CI:0.21;2.83) and 1.42% (95%CI:0.15;2.69), respectively. Additionally,, we found 3.00% (95%CI:1.09;4.91) and 1.98% (95%CI:0.28;3.68) higher HTR2A-methylation when comparing residences with and without the presence of nature in a 50 m and 100 m buffer, respectively. The methylation status of HTR2A in placental tissue is positively associated with maternal green space exposure. Future research is needed to understand better how these epigenetic changes are related to functional modifications in the placenta and the consequent implications for foetal development.

Mapping the distribution of allergenic plants in urbanized landscapes is of high importance to evaluate its impact on human health. However, data is not always available for the allergy-relevant species such as alder, birch, hazel, especially within cities where systematic inventories are often missing or not readily available. This research presents an approach to produce high-resolution abundance maps of allergenic tree species using existing forest inventories and opportunistic open-access citizen science data. Following a two-step approach, we first built species distribution models (SDMs) to predict species habitat suitability, using environmental characteristics as predictors. Second, we used statistical regressions to model the relationships between abundance, the habitat suitability predicted by the SDMs, and additional vegetation cover covariates. The combination of forest inventory data with citizen science data improves the accuracy of abundance distribution models of allergenic tree species. This produces a continuous, 1-hectare resolution map of alder, birch, and hazel showing spatial variations of abundance distributions both within the urban fabric and along the urban–rural gradient. Species abundance modelling can offer a better understanding of the existing and potential future allergy risk posed by green spaces and pave the way for a wide variety of applications at fine-scale, which is indispensable for evidence-based urban green space policy and planning in support of public health.