Limiting food waste via grassroots initiatives as a potential for climate change mitigation: a systematic review

An estimated 30 to 50 % of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted each year. These global food loss and waste (FLW) annually generate 4.4 Gt CO2-eq, or about 8 % of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and thus present a still underestimated driver of climate change. To date, little is known about grassroots initiatives dedicated to reducing and preventing FLW and their actual potential to prevent FLW and thus contribution to mitigate GHG emissions. This paper presents a systematic review that examined the peer-reviewed evidence on grassroots initiatives’ potential to limit food waste and GHG emissions. We found 15 relevant studies which represent a small but recent and growing interest in the topic. The findings of the studies are mostly of a qualitative nature, exploring the initiatives’ organizational structure, goals and available resources. This systematic review highlights a pressing need for further research and impact measurement to better assess the role of grassroots initiatives in FLW reduction and climate change mitigation. It raises main directions for future research

30 days wild: development and evaluation of a large-scale nature engagement campaign to improve well-being

There is a need to increase people’s engagement with and connection to nature, both for human well-being and the conservation of nature itself. In order to suggest ways for people to engage with nature and create a wider social context to normalise nature engagement, The Wildlife Trusts developed a mass engagement campaign, 30 Days Wild. The campaign asked people to engage with nature every day for a month. 12,400 people signed up for 30 Days Wild via an online sign-up with an estimated 18,500 taking part overall, resulting in an estimated 300,000 engagements with nature by participants. Samples of those taking part were found to have sustained increases in happiness, health, connection to nature and pro-nature behaviours. With the improvement in health being predicted by the improvement in happiness, this relationship was mediated by the change in connection to nature

Using social marketing to bridge the gap between systematic conservation planning and implementation at the local government level

The study presented here describes an attempt to bridge the gap between systematic conservation assessment and decision-making for land-use planning in the Eastern Cape province, South Africa. The aim was to investigate how to effectively convince officials concerned with land use planning processes in the local municipal sphere to include conservation priorities meaningfully in their processes. The approach used to reach this aim was social marketing, the use of marketing technologies and concepts to effect behavior changes to further societal good. So far social marketing is not commonly used in the conservation domain; I therefore aimed also at proving the usefulness of this approach for conservation. Following the introduction which provides background to the project and a more detailed summary, Chapter 2 provides a detailed and comprehensive review of the considerations and concepts regarding the use of social marketing in a context geared at protecting nature. The research on the primary target group for this study, officials concerned with land use planning processes in the local municipal sphere is described in Chapter 3. The main outcomes were that land use planners perceive few needs with regards to implementing the incorporation of biodiversity conservation issues in the land use planning process, and that the deficiencies in the land use planning process per se, as well as the lack of recognition in the political sphere (the domain of elected councilors), represent the core barriers to adopting the conservation priorities. I conclude that to effect behavior change towards adoption of conservation priorities the land use planning processes need to be supported and the political sphere need to be included in the behavior change process. 6 Chapter 4 therefore focuses on the new target group that emerged as essential in the previous chapter, locally elected councilors. I found that councilors do actually consider land use planning procedures as being important, but also as being dysfunctional. Councilors do value their natural environment for themselves as well as for its tourism value, but most councilors had little understanding of what the term “biodiversity” means and did not connect the term “sustainability” with the natural environment. It became also evident, that councilors do not see conservation in a predominantly positive manner. Chapter 5 therefore yields insight on councilor’s perception that environmental protection and development are mutually exclusive, and the negative frames attached to the conservation endeavor as being socially unjust, disrespectful and utopian. In Chapter 6 I investigated the usefulness of a tractable and well established measure of environmental attitudes or beliefs. I assessed my target audience’s responses to the New Ecological Paradigm scale and the Inclusion of Nature in Self scale. I conclude in Chapter 7 with an account of the difficulties I encountered during the project, an assessment of my project from a social marketing perspective, components of my project that did not yield the results expected, and a proposal for future research

Local land-use planning and the role of conservation: An example analysing opportunities

South Africa is the world’s third most biodiverse country. The system of protected areas, however, does not capture its biodiversity comprehensively. Local land-use planning processes, and the integration of spatial conservation assessments in these processes, have been proposed as an effective approach to conserving biodiversity outside of protected areas. However, an understanding of the day-to-day processes in local government and the role conservation does or could play, is lacking. We used social marketing, a strategic and analytic approach to influence people’s behavioural choices, to investigate why biodiversity conservation maps have failed to provide the biodiversity protection envisaged and how land-use planners could be persuaded to use the maps effectively. We interviewed 24 officials in six Eastern Cape coastal municipalities. We found that in large municipalities the maps were used by environmental units, whereas in intermediate and small municipalities they were used primarily by the consultants that prepare municipal planning documents. The land-use planning system was not fully functional, because of a lack of capacity and importance accorded to the issue. We could not identify any benefits that land-use planners might perceive in using the maps that directly related to conservation. We found that the younger generation of officials showed less sensitivity to biodiversity concerns. Furthermore, we found the relationship to the political hierarchy to be pivotal. For conservation to succeed, new approaches – for example engaging with the land-use planning domain to include conservation assessments – will be necessary. Including political actors in the processes is crucial

Local land-use planning and the role of conservation: An example analysing opportunities

South Africa is the world’s third most biodiverse country. The system of protected areas, however, does not capture its biodiversity comprehensively. Local land-use planning processes, and the integration of spatial conservation assessments in these processes, have been proposed as an effective approach to conserving biodiversity outside of protected areas. However, an understanding of the day-to-day processes in local government and the role conservation does or could play, is lacking. We used social marketing, a strategic and analytic approach to influence people’s behavioural choices, to investigate why biodiversity conservation maps have failed to provide the biodiversity protection envisaged and how land-use planners could be persuaded to use the maps effectively. We interviewed 24 officials in six Eastern Cape coastal municipalities. We found that in large municipalities the maps were used by environmental units, whereas in intermediate and small municipalities they were used primarily by the consultants that prepare municipal planning documents. The land-use planning system was not fully functional, because of a lack of capacity and importance accorded to the issue. We could not identify any benefits that land-use planners might perceive in using the maps that directly related to conservation. We found that the younger generation of officials showed less sensitivity to biodiversity concerns. Furthermore, we found the relationship to the political hierarchy to be pivotal. For conservation to succeed, new approaches – for example engaging with the land-use planning domain to include conservation assessments – will be necessary. Including political actors in the processes is crucial

Limiting food waste via grassroots initiatives as a potential for climate change mitigation: a systematic review

An estimated 30%–50% of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted each year. These global food loss and waste (FLW) annually generate 4.4 Gt CO2-eq, or about 8% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and thus present a still underestimated driver of climate change. To date, little is known about grassroots initiatives dedicated to reducing and preventing FLW and their actual potential to prevent FLW and thus contribution to mitigate GHG emissions. This paper presents a systematic review that examined the peer-reviewed evidence on grassroots initiatives' potential to limit food waste and GHG emissions. We found 15 relevant studies which represent a small but recent and growing interest in the topic. The findings of the studies are mostly of a qualitative nature, exploring the initiatives' organizational structure, goals and available resources. This systematic review highlights a pressing need for further research and impact measurement to better assess the role of grassroots initiatives in FLW reduction and climate change mitigation. It raises main directions for future research.DFG, 414044773, Open Access Publizieren 2019 - 2020 / Technische Universität Berli

Prioritizing threat management for biodiversity conservation

Calls for threat management actions to protect biodiversity and restore ecosystem function are rarely coupled with costed and prioritized sets of management actions for use in decision making. We present a cost-effectiveness approach for prioritizing threat management to maximize the in situ protection of biodiversity per dollar spent. The approach draws on empirical data and expert knowledge of major threats to biodiversity, feasible threat management actions, and likely responses of biodiversity to a set of costed management scenarios. An application assessing 637 vertebrate wildlife species in the Kimberley region of north-western Australia suggests that the likely functional loss of 45 mammals, birds, and reptiles over the next 20 years can be averted by effectively managing fire, grazing, and invasive species for approximately AU$40 million per year. Our approach is flexible and may be useful for delivering transparent guidance for conserving species and ecosystems in other regions, including those where data is limited