How environmental values influence trust and beliefs about societal oversight and need for regulation of the Australian cattle industry

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd. Livestock grazing covers half of Australia and vast areas of global terrestrial ecosystems. The sustainability of the beef cattle industries are being scrutinised amid ongoing environmental concerns. In response, industry discourse has identified public trust as critical to avoiding reactive environmental regulation. However, public perceptions of the cattle industry's sustainability performance and trust are largely unknown and speculative. We present the first model of public attitudes toward the Australian cattle industry (n = 2913). Our results reveal that societal perceptions of the industry's environmental performance strongly predict trust in the industry. However, trust only weakly predicts a perceived right for societal oversight and has only an indirect relationship on need for environmental regulation. Environmental values influence perceptions of industry performance and the perceived right for societal oversight. We conclude that effective industry governance must be values literate and recognise that strong environmental performance is critical for public trust. Public trust is high but does not translate to support for a relaxed regulatory environment.This research was funded by the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland and CSIRO's Responsible Innovation Future Science Platform. The research was not funded by the Australian cattle industry, although TF has PhD scholarship funding from Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) for an unrelated research project

Data from quantitative systematic review of distributive environmental justice literature; a rich history, and the need for an enterprising future.

Data were produced as part of a systematic literature review. Abstract for review: Environmental distributive justice, contextually assesses social equities in relation to natural resources. While there is a rich literature on environmental distributive justice, there have been few assessments quantifying the biases and scopes of this literature. We conduct a systematic review of the literature. We find several key biases, and summarise the breadth of subjects that have been studied or discussed. We find a very distinct overlap between authorship nationality and study location, which is concerning, as some of the world’s most polluted and inequitable societies are least represented in authorship. Additionally, we find a dominance of quantitative studies. These results are important for understanding both where future research efforts in this discipline could best be directed, and how the literature could be enriched by diversified approaches. Improving environmental justice studies is critical and important for many people across our global society, which is increasingly shaped by widespread natural resource depletion

The centrality of social ties to climate migration and mental health

Abstract Climate change-related hazards and disasters, known to adversely impact physical and mental health outcomes, are also expected to result in human migration above current levels. Environmentally-motivated migration and displacement may lead to the disruption of existing social ties, with potentially adverse consequences for mobile populations as well as their family members who remain in places of origin. We propose that the disruption of social ties is a key mechanism by which climate-related migration may negatively impact mental health, in particular. Existing social ties may provide social and material resources that buffer mental health stressors related to both prolonged and acute climate events. Preparation for such events may also strengthen these same ties and protect mental health. Communities may leverage social ties, first to mitigate climate change, and second, to adapt and rebuild post-disaster in communities of origin. Additionally, social ties can inform migration decisions and destinations. For example, scholars have found that the drought-motivated adaptive migration of West African Fulbe herders only occurred because of the long-term development of social networks between migrants and non-migrants through trade and seasonal grazing. On the other hand, social ties do not always benefit mental health. Some migrants, including those from poor regions or communities with no formal safety net, may face considerable burden to provide financial and emotional resources to family members who remain in countries of origin. In destination communities, migrants often face significant social marginalization. Therefore, policies and programs that aim to maintain ongoing social ties among migrants and their family and community members may be critically important in efforts to enhance population resilience and adaptation to climate change and to improve mental health outcomes. Several online platforms, like Refugee Start Force, serve to integrate refugees by connecting migrants directly to people and services in destination communities. These efforts may increasingly draw upon novel technologies to support and maintain social networks in the context of population mobility due to climatic and other factors