Designing transformative spaces for sustainability in social-ecological systems

Transformations toward sustainability have recently gained traction, triggered in part by a growing recognition of the dramatic socio-cultural, political, economic, and technological changes required to move societies toward more desirable futures in the Anthropocene. However, there is a dearth of literature that emphasizes the crucial aspects of sustainability transformations in the diverse contexts of the Global South. Contributors to this Special Feature aim to address this gap by weaving together a series of case studies that together form an important navigational tool on the “how to” as well as the “what” and the “where to” of sustainability transformations across diverse challenges, sectors, and geographies. They propose the term “transformative space” as a “safe-enough” collaborative process whereby actors invested in sustainability transformations can experiment with new mental models, ideas, and practices that can help shift social-ecological systems onto more desirable pathways. The authors also highlight the challenges posed to researchers as they become “transformative space-makers,” navigating the power dynamics inherent in these processes. Because researchers and practitioners alike are challenged to provide answers to complex and often ambiguous or incomplete questions around sustainability, the ideas, reflections and learning gathered in this Special Feature provide some guidance on new ways of engaging with the world

A Review of Indigenous Food Crops in Africa and the Implications for more Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems

Indigenous and traditional foods crops (ITFCs) have multiple uses within society, and most notably have an important role to play in the attempt to diversify the food in order to enhance food and nutrition security. However, research suggests that the benefits and value of indigenous foods within the South African and the African context have not been fully understood and synthesized. Their potential value to the African food system could be enhanced if their benefits were explored more comprehensively. This synthesis presents a literature review relating to underutilized indigenous crop species and foods in Africa. It organizes the findings into four main contributions, nutritional, environmental, economic, and social-cultural, in line with key themes of a sustainable food system framework. It also goes on to unpack the benefits and challenges associated with ITFCs under these themes. A major obstacle is that people are not valuing indigenous foods and the potential benefit that can be derived from using them is thus neglected. Furthermore, knowledge is being lost from one generation to the next, with potentially dire implications for long-term sustainable food security. The results show the need to recognize and enable indigenous foods as a key resource in ensuring healthy food systems in the African continent

Mainstreaming Underutilized Indigenous and Traditional Crops into Food Systems: A South African Perspective

Business as usual or transformative change? While the global agro-industrial food system is credited with increasing food production, availability and accessibility, it is also credited with giving birth to ‘new’ challenges such as malnutrition, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. We reviewed the potential of underutilized indigenous and traditional crops to bring about a transformative change to South Africa’s food system. South Africa has a dichotomous food system, characterized by a distinct, dominant agro-industrial, and, alternative, informal food system. This dichotomous food system has inadvertently undermined the development of smallholder producers. While the dominant agro-industrial food system has led to improvements in food supply, it has also resulted in significant trade-offs with agro-biodiversity, dietary diversity, environmental sustainability, and socio-economic stability, especially amongst the rural poor. This challenges South Africa’s ability to deliver on sustainable and healthy food systems under environmental change. The review proposes a transdisciplinary approach to mainstreaming underutilized indigenous and traditional crops into the food system, which offers real opportunities for developing a sustainable and healthy food system, while, at the same time, achieving societal goals such as employment creation, wellbeing, and environmental sustainability. This process can be initiated by researchers translating existing evidence for informing policy-makers. Similarly, policy-makers need to acknowledge the divergence in the existing policies, and bring about policy convergence in pursuit of a food system which includes smallholder famers, and where underutilized indigenous and traditional crops are mainstreamed into the South African food system

Dynamical Evolution of a Cylindrical Shell with Rotational Pressure

We prepare a general framework for analyzing the dynamics of a cylindrical shell in the spacetime with cylindrical symmetry. Based on the framework, we investigate a particular model of a cylindrical shell-collapse with rotational pressure, accompanying the radiation of gravitational waves and massless particles. The model has been introduced previously but has been awaiting for proper analysis. Here the analysis is put forward: It is proved that, as far as the weak energy condition is satisfied outside the shell, the collapsing shell bounces back at some point irrespective of the initial conditions, and escapes from the singularity formation. The behavior after the bounce depends on the sign of the shell pressure in the z-direction. When the pressure is non-negative, the shell continues to expand without re-contraction. On the other hand, when the pressure is negative (i.e. it has a tension), the behavior after the bounce can be more complicated depending on the details of the model. However, even in this case, the shell never reaches the zero-radius configuration.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev.

Bacia hidrográfica e sua relação com o ecossistema ripário.

Matas ciliares são formações florestais situadas às margens dos cursos de água e são componentes da estrutura de bacias hidrográficas. Essas comunidades florestais esempenham inúmeras funções na dinâmica de uma bacia hidrográfica e são condições básicas para a manutenção da integridade dos processos hidrológicos e ecológicos nessas unidades da paisagem. São protegidas legalmente e estudos de sua dinâmica são importantes para formar a base na gestão e planejamento dos recursos hídricos em bacias hidrográficas. Bacias Hidrográficas são exemplos de sistemas complexos, em virtude da variedade de elementos componentes e dos fluxos de interação entre estes. Em função dessa complexidade, essa região geográfica, bem delimitada, pode ser estudada aplicando-se os conceitos de ecossistema e geossistema, como estão sendo utilizados no projeto de recuperação de mata ciliar degradada do Rio São Francisco

Bringing Together Gravity and the Quanta

Due to its underlying gauge structure, teleparallel gravity achieves a separation between inertial and gravitational effects. It can, in consequence, describe the isolated gravitational interaction without resorting to the equivalence principle, and is able to provide a tensorial definition for the energy-momentum density of the gravitational field. Considering the conceptual conflict between the local equivalence principle and the nonlocal uncertainty principle, the replacement of general relativity by its teleparallel equivalent can be considered an important step towards a prospective reconciliation between gravitation and quantum mechanics.Comment: 9 pages. Contribution to the proceedings of the Albert Einstein Century International Conference, Paris, 18-22 July, 200