Engage key social concepts for sustainability Hicks, Christina C.; Levine, Arielle; Agrawal, Arun ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
04/2016, Volume:
352, Issue:
6281
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Social indicators, both mature and emerging, are underused
With humans altering climate processes, biogeochemical cycles, and ecosystem functions (
1
), governments and societies confront the ...challenge of shaping a sustainable future for people and nature. Policies and practices to address these challenges must draw on social sciences, along with natural sciences and engineering (
2
). Although various social science approaches can enable and assess progress toward sustainability, debate about such concrete engagement is outpacing actual use. To catalyze uptake, we identify seven key social concepts that are largely absent from many efforts to pursue sustainability goals. We present existing and emerging well-tested indicators and propose priority areas for conceptual and methodological development.
•Nature and its contributions to people’s quality of life are associated with a wide diversity of values.•IPBES embraces this diversity of values, as well as the need to integrate and bridge them in ...its assessments.•Uncovering the values of nature’s contributions to people (NCP) can bridge notions of nature and a good quality of life.•Transformation towards sustainability requires addressing power relations among different perspectives on the values of NCP.•Intrinsic, instrumental and relational values need to be acknowledged and promoted.
Nature is perceived and valued in starkly different and often conflicting ways. This paper presents the rationale for the inclusive valuation of nature’s contributions to people (NCP) in decision making, as well as broad methodological steps for doing so. While developed within the context of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), this approach is more widely applicable to initiatives at the knowledge–policy interface, which require a pluralistic approach to recognizing the diversity of values. We argue that transformative practices aiming at sustainable futures would benefit from embracing such diversity, which require recognizing and addressing power relationships across stakeholder groups that hold different values on human nature-relations and NCP.
Improved understanding and management of social-ecological systems (SES) requires collaboration between biophysical and social scientists; however, issues related to research philosophy and ...approaches, the nature of data, and language hinder interdisciplinary science. Here, we discuss how we used conceptual models to promote interdisciplinary dialogue in support of integrated ecosystem assessments (IEAs) in the California Current ecosystem. Initial con-ceptualizations of the California Current IEA were based on the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework. This initial framing was biophysically centered, with humans primarily incorporated as impacts on the system. We wished to move from a conceptualization that portrayed an antagonistic relationship between humans and nature to one that integrated humans and social systems into the IEA framework. We propose a new conceptualization of the California Current that functions across temporal and spatial scales, captures the diverse relationships that typify SESs, and highlights the need for interdisciplinary science. The development of this conceptualization reveals how our understanding of the place and role of people in the ecosystem changed over the course of the history of the California Current IEA. This conceptual model is adaptive and serves to ensure that interdisciplinarity will now be the standard for the California Current IEA and, perhaps, beyond.
At a time of increasing disconnectedness from nature, scientific interest in the potential health benefits of nature contact has grown. Research in recent decades has yielded substantial evidence, ...but large gaps remain in our understanding.
We propose a research agenda on nature contact and health, identifying principal domains of research and key questions that, if answered, would provide the basis for evidence-based public health interventions.
We identify research questions in seven domains:
) mechanistic biomedical studies;
) exposure science;
) epidemiology of health benefits;
) diversity and equity considerations;
) technological nature;
) economic and policy studies; and
) implementation science.
Nature contact may offer a range of human health benefits. Although much evidence is already available, much remains unknown. A robust research effort, guided by a focus on key unanswered questions, has the potential to yield high-impact, consequential public health insights. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP1663.
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