37 research outputs found
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The Elusive Pursuit of Interdisciplinarity at the HumanâEnvironment Interface
Environmental challenges are complex and require expertise from multiple disciplines. Consequently, there is growing interest in interdisciplinary
environmental research that integrates natural and social science, an often arduous undertaking. We surveyed researchers interested and experienced
in research at the humanâenvironment interface to assess perspectives on interdisciplinary research. Integrative interdisciplinary research
has eluded many of our respondents, whose efforts are better described as additive multidisciplinary research. The respondents identified many
advantages and rewards of interdisciplinary research, including the creation of more-relevant knowledge. However, they also reported significant
challenges and obstacles, including tension with departments (49%) or institutions (61%), communication difficulties, and differing disciplinary
approaches, as well as institutional barriers (e.g., a lack of credit in promotion and tenure). Most (52%) believed that developing interdisciplinary
breadth should begin as early as the undergraduate level. We apply our results to recommendations for successful interdisciplinary endeavors.Keywords: coupled human and natural systems, sustainability, interdisciplinary research, socialâecological systems, surveyKeywords: coupled human and natural systems, sustainability, interdisciplinary research, socialâecological systems, surve
Criteria for effective zero-deforestation commitments
Zero-deforestation commitments are a type of voluntary sustainability initiative that companies adopt to signal their intention to reduce or eliminate deforestation associated with commodities that they produce, trade, and/or sell. Because each company defines its own zero-deforestation commitment goals and implementation mechanisms, commitment content varies widely. This creates challenges for the assessment of commitment implementation or effectiveness. Here, we develop criteria to assess the potential effectiveness of zero-deforestation commitments at reducing deforestation within a company supply chain, regionally, and globally. We apply these criteria to evaluate 52 zero-deforestation commitments made by companies identified by Forest 500 as having high deforestation risk. While our assessment indicates that existing commitments converge with several criteria for effectiveness, they fall short in a few key ways. First, they cover just a small share of the global market for deforestation-risk commodities, which means that their global impact is likely to be small. Second, biome-wide implementation is only achieved in the Brazilian Amazon. Outside this region, implementation occurs mainly through certification programs, which are not adopted by all producers and lack third-party near-real time deforestation monitoring. Additionally, around half of all commitments include zero-net deforestation targets and future implementation deadlines, both of which are design elements that may reduce effectiveness. Zero-net targets allow promises of future reforestation to compensate for current forest loss, while future implementation deadlines allow for preemptive clearing. To increase the likelihood that commitments will lead to reduced deforestation across all scales, more companies should adopt zero-gross deforestation targets with immediate implementation deadlines and clear sanction-based implementation mechanisms in biomes with high risk of forest to commodity conversion.ISSN:0959-3780ISSN:1872-949
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Monitoring the world's agriculture
Agriculture must be transformed. Although global food production is increasing, today's farming systems undermine the well-being of communities in many ways. For instance, farming has destroyed huge regions of natural habitat and caused an untold loss of ecosystem services, and it is responsible for about 30% of greenhouse-gas emissions. Already, about 1 billion people are undernourished. Yet to feed the global population expected by 2050, more than 1 billion hectares of wild land will need to be converted to farmland if current approaches continue to be used
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Effective monitoring of agriculture: a response
The development of effective agricultural monitoring networks is essential to track, anticipate and manage changes in the social, economic and environmental aspects of agriculture. We welcome the perspective of Lindenmayer and Likens (J. Environ. Monit., 2011, 13, 1559) as published in the Journal of Environmental Monitoring on our earlier paper, âMonitoring the World's Agricultureâ (Sachs et al., Nature, 2010, 466, 558â560). In this response, we address their three main critiques labeled as âthe passive approachâ, âthe problem with uniform metricsâ and âthe problem with composite metricsâ. We expand on specific research questions at the core of the network design, on the distinction between key universal and site-specific metrics to detect change over time and across scales, and on the need for composite metrics in decision-making. We believe that simultaneously measuring indicators of the three pillars of sustainability (environmentally sound, social responsible and economically viable) in an effectively integrated monitoring system will ultimately allow scientists and land managers alike to find solutions to the most pressing problems facing global food security
Transitioning to more sustainable, low-emissions agriculture in Brazil
KEY FINDINGS
Cattle producers joined sustainability initiatives primarily to increase production, reduce production costs, learn new practices and access innovations, and because of their interest in sustainability.
Farmers who shifted to sustainable intensification practices increased their productivity. Some also accessed new markets and a minority earned higher prices.
Producers sought farming advice mostly from nearby farmers and technicians promoting sustainability initiatives.
The cost of changing farm practices, insufficient technical assistance or capacity, and difficulty in complying with legal standards were the major barriers preventing other cattle producers from participating in sustainability initiatives.
The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per kg of beef of cattle farmers in sustainable intensification programs were 18% lower compared to neighboring farms not in the programs.
Early life-cycle cattle ranching (e.g. calving, early rearing), commonly associated with deforestation, has been more engaged with NGO initiatives providing support and agronomic outreach rather than formal standards and reporting.
Coffee
Coffee farmers joined a certification program because of requests from buyers, potential for receiving price premiums on their coffee, and to access new markets with certified products.
Coffee farmers producing certified coffee increased their economic efficiency, mainly due to higher productivity, compared to before they certified.
Coffee producers' connections to technicians and access to information mostly revolved around their participation in cooperatives.POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
Build on market development lessons from the coffee sector to enhance sustainability, quality, traceability, and branding in the cattle sector.
Expand sustainability initiativesâ capacity to deliver market access, technical assistance, and finance services to more cattle farmers.
Continue support to producers in sustainability initiatives over multiple years, as they are likely to increase the sustainability of their practices with time.
Expand agronomic outreach and sustainability initiatives to calving and early rearing operations to reduce associated deforestation and GHG emissions
The PREDICTS database: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts
Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures
such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of
alien species. Existing global databases of speciesâ threat status or population
time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with
broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of
a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of
historical declines and to project â and avert â future declines. We describe and
assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing
over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of
local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic
pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains
measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35)
biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains
more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than
1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups â including flowering
plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans
and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is
therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used
by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database
is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses
of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems â www.predicts.org.uk).
We make site-level summary data available alongside this article. The full database
will be publicly available in 2015
Ecoagriculture And Biodiversity Conservation: Concepts, Approaches, And Evidence From Northern Latin America
Ecoagriculture is an approach to landscape management that simultaneously advances agricultural production, conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and sustainable rural livelihoods. In this dissertation, I address gaps in the science and application of ecoagriculture by reviewing key antecedents of this approach, enumerating a framework for ecoagriculture practice, and evaluating ecoagriculture outcomesâparticularly biodiversity conservationâin pasture-dominated landscapes in northern Latin America. Ecoagriculture builds upon multiple disciplines and traditions of practice including landscape and ecosystem approaches, adaptive management, and integrated natural resource management. These antecedents inform the Landscape Measures approach, a structure for guiding multi-stakeholder planning, decision-making, and monitoring of ecoagriculture objectives at a landscape scale. Pilot applications of this approach in Honduras and Kenya suggest its value for promoting landscape multifunctionality by documenting landscape dynamics, fostering constructive dialogue among diverse stakeholders, and improving empirical bases for collective decision-making. Previous research has indicated that a substantial proportion of native species may persist in Neotropical agricultural mosaics. However, the consistency of these findingsâand thus their applicability to unstudied localesâremains unknown. I conducted a coordinated multi-site study to evaluate the consistency of relationships between bird and butterfly assemblage characteristics and land use practices in four landscapes spanning four countries in northern Latin America: Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Bird and butterfly species richness and abundance were significantly related to land use across all four landscapes, and were generally positively correlated with degree of tree cover. In the Honduras landscape, I also investigated the relative influence of land use, vegetation, and landscape composition and structure on bird and butterfly assemblages. These assemblages were more strongly related to land use and plot-scale habitat features than to gradients of landscape composition and structure. Across all landscapes, habitat heterogeneity fostered high levels of beta diversity and high overall species richness, but only a modest presence of forest-dependent and high conservation value species. The findings underscore the importance of considering multiple conservation values when evaluating conservation outcomes in ecoagriculture landscapes. These values include protecting species of intermediate conservation concern and species that support rural livelihoodsânot only globally threatened biodiversity
Trends and Future Potential of Payment for Ecosystem Services to Alleviate Rural Poverty in Developing Countries
Payment for ecosystem services (PES) is a market-based approach to environmental management that compensates land stewards for ecosystem conservation and restoration. Because lowincome households and communities control much of the ecologically sensitive land in developing countries, they potentially stand to gain from PES, as environmentally responsible stewardship is assigned a value by various actors in society. To date, however, instances of PES benefiting the poor have been limited mainly to specific localities, small-scale projects, and a handful of broader government programs. We analyze the size, characteristics, and trends of PES to evaluate its future potential to benefit low-income land stewards in developing countries. We estimate that by the year 2030, markets for biodiversity conservation could benefit 10-15 million low-income households in developing countries, carbon markets could benefit 25-50 million, markets for watershed protection could benefit 80-100 million, and markets for landscape beauty and recreation could benefit 5-8 million. If payments and markets reach these potentials, they could provide a non-negligible contribution to poverty alleviation at the global level
How important will different types of compensation and reward mechanisms be in shaping poverty and ecosystem services across Africa, Asia and Latin America over the next two decades?
This paper is the 9th paper in a series of nine interlinked papers commissioned by the Rural Poverty and Environment Programme (RPE) of the International Development Research Center (IDRC) as part of a research project entitled âScoping Study of Compensation for Ecosystem Servicesâ. The purpose of this project is to provide the RPE with a broader and richer deliberation on the potential for economic instruments (including market, financial and incentive based instruments) which conserve ecosystem services and at the same time contribute to poverty reduction in the developing world. // The development of Compensation and Rewards for Environmental Services (CRES) will have differential impact on poor resource managers and poor consumers depending upon the characteristics of the resource itself, the financial and other values for different beneficiaries, and the design of payment and market systems. In this early stage of CRES development, there are significant opportunities to shape that development in ways that will have greater benefits for the poor and for poverty reduction. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relative importance of different types of CRES in shaping poverty and ecosystem services across the developing world, as they are likely to evolve over the next two decades