Why financial incentives can destroy economically valuable biodiversity in Ethiopia

Ethiopian montane rainforests are economically valuable repositories of biodiversity, especially of wild Coffea arabica populations, and they are vanishing at accelerating rates. Our research results confirm theory which explains biodiversity loss by diverging private and social net benefits from land conversion. Poor farmers basically live from hand-to-mouth and manage resources with very short term planning horizons. In such circumstances they cannot afford to carry the cost burden of conservation from which the broader national and global society benefits. Society, on the other hand, highly values the biodiversity of Ethiopia’s montane rainforests, but has not managed to put mechanisms in place which enable to pay for the conservation of these values and conservation policies are in place but are not implemented. While it is economically rational for the farmer to convert forests into agricultural land and thereby improve his income (the financial incentive we refer to here), it is economically irrational for national and global society not to pay for conservation. The core reasons for such divergence is that institutions for conservation and sustainable use are not in place. We identify the most important ones and recommend changes for the Ethiopian case

COVID-19, A Global Health Concern Requiring Science-Based Solutions

Scientifically-based concrete action points to reduce the spread, lessen the impact, reduce the concerns of the wider population, and avoid further outbreaks for governments, organizations, and individuals are neededFinal Published versio

Lessons from complexity science for urban health and well-being

From a complexity science perspective, urban health and well-being challenges emerge due to the complexity of urban systems. Adverse urban health outcomes emerge from failing to respond to that complexity by taking a systems approach in knowledge and action which would open opportunity spaces for human agents to create benefits which in turn would generate salutogenic health and well-being outcomes. Lessons learned from complexity science suggest that adverse urban health outcomes emerge from a poor understanding of their complexity and from not engaging with them in a transdisciplinary, integrated fashion. A conceptual framework is presented which combines systems models from the natural and social sciences and explains how opportunities for advancing health and well-being can be co-created. The framework demonstrates that taking a systems approach is a necessary cognitive response from learning the lessons of complexity science and from understanding that humans are an inextricable part of the systems they aim at understanding and managing. Such response is at the core of systems intelligence. The implications are far reaching for the science of urban health and well-being

Resilience Management for Healthy Cities in a Changing Climate

Cities are experiencing multiple impacts from global environmental change, and the degree to which they will need to cope with and adapt to these challenges will continue to increase. We argue that a ‘complex systems and resilience management’ view may significantly help guide future urban development through innovative integration of, for example, grey, blue and green infrastructure embedded in flexible institutions (both formal and informal) for multi-functionality and improved health. For instance, the urban heat island effect will further increase city-centre temperatures during projected more frequent and intense heat waves. The elderly and people with chronic cardiovascular and respiratory diseases are particularly vulnerable to heat. Integrating vegetation and especially trees in the urban infrastructure helps reduce temperatures by shading and evapotranspiration. Great complexity and uncertainty of urban social-ecological systems are behind this heatwave-health nexus, and they need to be addressed in a more comprehensive manner. We argue that a systems perspective can lead to innovative designs of new urban infrastructure and the redesign of existing structures. Particularly to promoting the integration of grey, green and blue infrastructure in urban planning through institutional innovation and structural reorganization of knowledge-action systems may significantly enhance prospects for improved urban health and greater resilience under various scenarios of climate change.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Governing of Agro-Ecosystem Services

In this paper we incorporate interdisciplinary New Institutional and Transaction Costs Economics (combining Economics, Organization, Law, Sociology, Behavioral and Political Sciences), and suggest a framework for analysis of mechanisms of governance of agro-ecosystem services. Firstly, we present a new approach for analysis and improvement of governance of agro-ecosystem services. It takes into account the role of specific institutional environment (formal and informal rules, distribution of rights, systems of enforcement); and behavioral characteristics of individual agents (preferences, bounded rationality, opportunism, risk aversion, trust); and transactions costs associated with ecosystem services and their critical factors (uncertainty, frequency, asset specificity, appropriability); and comparative efficiency of market, private, public and hybrid modes of governance. Secondly, we identify spectrum of market and private forms of governance of agro-ecosystem services (voluntary initiatives; market trade with eco-products and services; special contractual arrangements; collective actions; vertical integration), and evaluate their efficiency and potential. Next, we identify needs for public involvement in the governance of agro-ecosystem services, and assess comparative efficiency of alternative modes of public interventions (assistance, regulations, funding, taxing, provision, partnership, property right modernization). Finally, we analyze structure and efficiency of governance of agro-ecosystems services in Zapadna Stara Planina – a mountainous region in North-West Bulgaria. Post-communist transition and EU integration has brought about significant changes in the state and governance of agro-ecosystems services. Newly evolved market, private and public governance has led to significant improvement of part of agro-ecosystems services introducing modern eco-standards and public support, enhancing environmental stewardship, desintensifying production, recovering landscape and traditional productions, diversifying quality, products, and services. At the same time, novel governance is associated with some new challenges such as unsustainable exploitation, lost biodiversity, land degradation, water and air contamination. What is more, implementation of EU common policies would have no desired impact on agro-ecosystem services unless special measures are taken to improve management of public programs, and extend public support to dominating small-scale and subsistence farms