Societies around the world continue to face familiar ecological crises, including, deforestation, fisheries collapse, droughts. Yet the lessons these events offer are rarely carried forward across generations. This perspective introduces ecological amnesia to explain why environmental learning fades and why many conservation gains remain short-lived. Ecological amnesia emerges when ecological, institutional, and cultural memory systems weaken, leaving societies less able to read early warning signs, recognise slow-moving risks, or maintain protective measures once immediate pressures subside. The problem is reinforced by temporal mismatches: ecological recovery unfolds slowly, while political cycles, economic incentives, and public attention move far more quickly. Drawing on examples from forests, water systems, coral reefs, and fisheries, the perspective examines how misleading signals of recovery and shifting ecological baselines obscure functional fragility and reduce momentum for sustained action. It also highlights how ecological memory can be strengthened through long-term monitoring, continuity of environmental data, indigenous and local knowledge, and governance arrangements retaining lessons beyond short-term cycles. Recognising ecological amnesia as a source of vulnerability provides a explanation for the repeated nature of environmental crises and points towards forms of governance better suited to sustaining resilience as climate pressures intensify.
Arctic freshwater biodiversity is rapidly changing due to climate warming, resource extraction, infrastructure development, and landscape transformation. To improve understanding, predict future responses, and inform policy formulation, research needs must be clearly identified. Using a horizon scan survey, Arctic freshwater experts from government, international agencies, and Indigenous Peoples identified 77 biodiversity research questions with 17 highlighted as most important for near term assessment. These questions span nine thematic categories: biodiversity and taxonomic challenges, hydrological change, productivity and food webs, ecosystem connectivity, methods, monitoring and assessment, permafrost change, winter ecology, anthropogenic development, and Indigenous Knowledge. Climate change emerged as the major driver among all categories and research questions. A key priority identified was the urgent need for long-term, harmonized monitoring programs among Arctic countries. Multiple knowledge gaps detected suggest that circumpolar research collaborations are required to tackle these issues.
Voluntary conservation programs are increasingly used to align rural development with ecosystem protection within working landscapes, yet their effectiveness depends on the willingness and capacity of landowners to participate. To explore factors that influence participation, we investigated socioenvironmental characteristics of rural properties in a conservation program in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Using Bayesian modeling across 18 717 properties, we found participants concentrated in marginal agricultural lands and in properties with large extents of riparian areas, suggesting a pattern of self-selection into program participation. Using participation probabilities, we identified ~ 5000 additional properties to join future conservation programs, in the same area. These findings suggest that incentive-based policies may reward voluntary conservation while successfully engaging landowners in marginal lands. Voluntary conservation schemes tend to attract landowners predisposed to conservation, while struggling to engage those facing higher opportunity costs. Achieving transformative outcomes will require incentive structures that better align economic competitiveness with ecological priorities.
Recent literature on science-policy-society interfaces (SPSI) suggests that transformative change in environmental governance requires solution-focused, inclusive, and co-produced mechanisms in the creation of policy-relevant knowledge. Nonetheless, due to accepted epistemic norms and modes of organisation, most SPSIs fail to address prevailing power disparities and contribute to real economic and political restructuring for sustainability. This paper addresses a rarely considered but critical aspect of transformative knowledge co-production, namely the governance structures and processes that underpin SPSI interactions. Based on a design thinking process and expert interviews, we outline a novel model of SPSI governance that is based on the principles of sociocracy, centring equity, inclusivity, and consent-based decision-making. Finally, using the example of the Science Service for Biodiversity, a newly developed SPSI under the EU-funded BioAgora project: we sketch the strengths and limitations of this model, inviting readers to reimagine and further the discussion on SPSI governance.
Pastoralism remains vital to Mediterranean landscapes and cultural heritage; yet, pastoralists increasingly doubt how far society accepts and values their activity. Using a nationwide survey of the Spanish public, I examined social attitudes toward pastoralism and compared them with recent surveys of pastoralists in the same region. I found that rural background and older age are associated with more favorable views of pastoral and other extensive livestock systems, while intensive systems are viewed least favorably. The public reports declining social appreciation of pastoralism over time, but relatively infrequent conflict and low concern about externalities. In contrast, pastoralists perceive strong urban intolerance and a widespread loss of social esteem. This comparison reveals that citizens are more accepting of pastoralism than pastoralists believe. I highlight this crucial perception gap and identify communication, policy, and governance measures that support the long-term sustainability of the largest pastoralist system of Europe.
Wildfire smoke represents an underrecognized yet potentially important contributor to the dissemination of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). As wildfires increase in frequency and intensity due to climate change, they release vast amounts of PM2.5, particles with the potential to transport antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms and genetic elements across long distances. These severe air pollution events create multifactorial pressures on human and environmental health: increasing antimicrobial prescriptions through respiratory and systemic illnesses, overwhelming healthcare systems, and facilitating the environmental spread of multidrug-resistant strains through deposition in water, soil, and agri-food systems. This perspective highlights how wildfire-related PM2.5 may act as a direct vehicle and an indirect driver of AMR propagation across One Health domains. We emphasize the urgent need to integrate AMR surveillance into air quality monitoring, particularly in vulnerable regions. Understanding this possible relationship is essential for informing future research priorities, guiding public health strategies, and advancing interdisciplinary approaches to address these converging global health threats.
Forest disturbances are increasingly understood as social-ecological phenomena involving diverse actors. Here, we focused on one of the Europe's largest recent disturbances-the drought-triggered bark beetle outbreak in Central Europe (2017-2022). Based on a survey of 165 respondents, we examined perceived disturbance drivers, response actions, and the alignment between them as an indicator of a value-action gap that is often present in social-ecological and governance systems. Climatic and forest structure-related factors were identified as the dominant drivers, aligning with current scientific understanding, whereas socio-economic and management constraints were perceived as less influential. Reported responses reflected awareness of climate-change risks and involved workforce training, adaptive change in species composition, and water-retention measures. Cause-action alignment was observed in nearly half of respondents, particularly among managers and legal entities. We found a relatively sound understanding of disturbance causes and corresponding responses, likely shaped by recent experience with an unprecedented disturbance impact.
Satellite tracking has revolutionized our understanding of animal migration, yet its reliability increasingly depends on the geopolitical stability of the regions frequented by wildlife. Here, we show that military-induced interference with global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) during ongoing conflicts in Eastern Europe has severely compromised the accuracy of global positioning systems (GPS)-based tracking data for black-headed gulls (Chroicocephalus ridibundus). In 2024-2025, GPS trajectories revealed erratic, low-quality, and geographically implausible positions coinciding with known zones of electronic warfare. These inaccuracies hinder efforts to locate breeding colonies, identify key stopover habitats, and assess disease transmission risks posed by migratory birds, particularly for zoonoses such as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1. Our findings illustrate how modern conflicts now extend their impact into ecological research infrastructures, calling for systematic correction methods and international coordination to safeguard the robustness of movement ecology studies and One Health models in a geopolitically unstable world.
In this paper, we explore how media covers and frames fishery issues. Focusing on the German Baltic fishery, we use methods from computational linguistics, political science, and fisheries science to analyze almost 1800 newspaper articles from 2009 to 2021. We document four key results. First, political events-rather than scientific policy advice-drive media reporting. Second, fishery representatives are mentioned more often than environmental non-governmental organizations (eNGOs) and with a much higher level of personalization and emotionalization. Third, reductions in European Union (EU) fishing quotas are followed by negative media sentiment, even though the status of the Baltic ecosystem would improve. Fourth, media portrayal of relevant stakeholder groups is consistent with the existence of two opposing coalitions: one emphasizing the socio-economic viability of the fishery and one advocating for the ecosystem's ecological health. Overall, we find evidence that newspapers tend to act as "advocates" of the fishers' interests and concerns.
The North Aral Sea (Kazakhstan) has been the focus of restoration efforts to counter the desiccation of one of the world's largest lakes. As restoration ultimately aims to improve human well-being, monitoring population health is essential. This review synthesizes health issues reported in the region in 2015-2025. Findings indicate multifactorial adverse outcomes, including cardiovascular, endocrine, reproductive, and nutritional disturbances linked to historical contamination, dietary deficiencies, psychosocial stress, and limited healthcare access. Although partial restoration has reduced some environmental hazards, residual risks persist, particularly in southern desiccated zones. Integrated preventive actions are recommended, including environmental management, strengthened healthcare, improved nutrition, education, and infrastructure. Any future industrial expansion, including resource extraction, must be paired with sustainable community engagement. The North Aral case provides broader lessons for environmentally stressed dryland basins, highlighting how coupled ecological and social disruptions can compound health risks across generations and underscoring the need for equity-focused recovery strategies.
Cities face many environmental, social, and economic challenges. Green infrastructure (GI) and nature-based solutions (NBS) are the tools that contribute to tackling them and improving the quality of life of urban citizens. To strengthen the competencies of cities in achieving sustainable development, the Polish Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy led, in collaboration with the World Bank, a flagship project of the National Urban Policy 2030-the Cities' Partnership Initiative (CPI) 2021-2023. Within CPI, ten Polish cities participated in the Green Network Group. Based on Green Network's work results, we aim to: 1. Reveal contemporary key urban challenges that the GI and NBS can address; 2. Indicate barriers in the planning, design, execution, and maintenance of GI or NBS that hinder their systemic development (legal, organizational, substantive, financial); 3. Propose improvements to the GI and NBS systemic development from the perspective of practitioners reperesenting cities. The findings result from a series of workshops and Municipal Action Plans developed by participants to address city-specific challenges. The results showed that urban challenges are multidimensional, and GI and NBS are recognized as multi-beneficial solutions. Municipalities struggle with legal, organizational, substantial, and financial shortages, but at the same time, they indicate various improvements that are needed to strengthen the systemic approach to GI and NBS uptake.
The ongoing recolonization of Europe by wolves (Canis lupus) has generated substantial societal attention reflected in media narratives, where attitudes vary in their framing of conservation success and human-wildlife conflict. We examined factors influencing media attitudes toward wolves by analyzing over 4000 online news articles from the Italian Alpine regions across a decade, employing both human and neural network classifications. Bayesian modeling identified clear spatial and temporal patterns: negative media sentiment prevailed in recently recolonized areas, whereas positive attitudes emerged in regions with established wolf populations and at the national level. Negative sentiment correlated strongly with seasonal peaks in predation on livestock and proximity to regional, national, and European elections. We revealed how spatial recolonization dynamics, human-wildlife conflicts, and electoral cycles collectively shape media framing of a recolonizing controversial carnivore. These findings inform conservation strategies that address human-wildlife conflict dynamics while acknowledging the politicized dimension surrounding the species.
Drylands face urgent development challenges that are complex and interconnected, requiring holistic systems-based approaches. Here, we present a social-ecological systems framework to guide research, policy, and action across disciplines and sectors towards sustainability transformations in drylands for improved livelihoods and enhanced ecosystem, livestock, and human health. Our conceptual framework integrates three non-exclusive and complementary lenses of human-driven transformations: systemic, structural and enabling/grassroots change. Based on these three complementary lenses, along with three main phases of transformation and key associated actions, we briefly illustrate the framework's value through the case of the Karamoja cross-border region of East Africa. We show how the framework can be used as an entry point to identify and analyse key challenges and their interlinkages; envision desired social-ecological systems; and explore pathways towards sustainability. The framework provides actionable guidance to co-develop context-specific interventions that support sustainability transformations in drylands.
Systematic conservation planning is widely used to guide biodiversity policy, yet evidence that spatial priority setting translates into effective land-use outcomes remains limited. In Brazil, a national initiative established priority areas for conservation, sustainable use, and benefit sharing in 2004 to orient conservation investments. Two decades later, their influence on land-use trajectories remains uncertain. We assessed land-use and land-cover dynamics from 2004 to 2024 within high, very high, and extremely high priority areas in coastal municipalities of the Atlantic Forest biome. Using MapBiomas data, we quantified net and gross changes across five land-use classes and compared patterns among priority levels. Urban expansion occurred across all categories, while extremely high priority areas experienced net losses of natural vegetation and the highest land-cover turnover. These findings show that prioritization alone has limited capacity to constrain land-use pressures in dynamic coastal landscapes and requires integration with enforceable governance frameworks and territorial planning.
Crises narratives surrounding the societal challenges of biodiversity loss, climate change, and human health and well-being dominate current debates in global environmental politics. These challenges are deeply interconnected and require transformative and integrated change. Marine and coastal Nature-based Solutions (blue NbS) are an opportunity to minimise harmful human impacts on these ecosystems while providing co-benefits to people and nature. However, uptake of the approach is currently slow despite the urgency of addressing global challenges. For blue NbS to become a key tool for environmental management, integrated social-ecological advice on action for practitioners is required, alongside guidance for new research. Here, we present eight recommendations to help advance further research, development, and implementation of effective blue NbS. Recommendations are broadly grouped into three themes: (1) objectives, (2) function, and (3) mechanisms. Through these, we aim to encourage dialogue into strategic blue NbS implementation and research that supports solution-focussed narratives.
Harvesting naturally dynamic forests causes losses of habitat quality and functional connectivity. Focusing on Sweden as a case study of high-yield rotation forestry, we provide analyses supporting spatial prioritisation of protection, management and restoration of representative functional forest habitat networks. Habitat suitability index modelling of focal bird species was used to analyse how forest naturalness, habitat patch size and functional connectivity affect representative forest habitat networks in Sweden's five ecoregions. Habitat modelling for the least demanding bird species showed that of the mountain ecoregion 57-77% was functional, but in the other three boreal ecoregions only 8-9% were functional. For nemoral forests, the proportions of functional habitat networks were < 3%. More demanding species have even less functional habitat. We highlight the importance of the mountain ecoregion for forest biodiversity conservation, and the urgent need for landscape planning of protection, conservation management and nature restoration in Sweden.
Resilience thinking has become central to addressing environmental and societal challenges, yet it focuses primarily on ecological and social dimensions while physical foundations remain underrepresented. This systematic scoping review examined 90 geodiversity and geoheritage studies (2012-2025) analysing connections to resilience concepts. While most reviewed studies lack explicit resilience frameworks, they demonstrate extensive implicit resilience engagement, particularly through maintaining diversity and redundancy, managing slow variables, encouraging learning, and broadening participation. Geodiversity enriches resilience thinking by treating physical environments not as passive backdrops but as active participants in system change, and by bridging natural and social dimensions that are typically managed separately. Three interrelated barriers limit integration of resilience and geodiversity: disciplinary communities remain disconnected, evidence emphasizes description over mechanisms, and institutional infrastructure for geodiversity governance lags behind that for biodiversity. Overcoming these barriers through collaborative efforts could ground resilience thinking in the geological reality that underlies all sustainability challenges.
Effective and locally supported river restoration requires attention to the social dimensions of rivers. This paper examines local perceptions of hydropower and restoration in the river Rönne å, an early case under Sweden's National Plan for Modern Environmental Conditions for Hydropower. A mixed-methods approach, including a questionnaire and qualitative interviews, explores how inhabitants relate to their river and view the removal of three low-production dams, offering one of the most detailed assessments of stakeholder values in a Swedish hydropower river. The findings reveal important tensions between energy production and ecological restoration: While hydropower retains cultural legitimacy, support declines when ecological costs outweigh energy benefits. The river holds strong recreational, cultural, and symbolic meanings, embedding dam removals in broader sociocultural contexts rather than solely technical or ecological. These findings highlight the importance of participatory efforts and governance that align ecological goals with the diverse ways people relate to rivers.
Agroforestry systems, such as homegardens, provide social-ecological benefits but face increasing pressures from climate change. In this study, we identify drivers of social and ecological resilience to perturbances in homegardens by examining the influence of livelihood assets, ecological diversity, legacy effects and system age. We collected data from around 360 homegardens in Kerala, India, using household surveys, agrobiodiversity plots and remote sensing-derived vegetation data and analysed them by fitting linear and logistic regression models. Social resilience was positively associated with access to credit, homegarden size and past shock exposure, while ecological resilience was positively associated with plant access and negatively linked to homegarden age. Our findings suggest that homegarden resilience may be facilitated by tailored interventions that enhance financial certainty and access to plant resources, as well as preparedness strategies. These insights are crucial for ensuring the resilience of homegarden systems amid increasing environmental and socioeconomic challenges.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly integrated in sustainability governance, yet most applications remain oriented towards optimisation and prediction, reducing complex social-ecological issues to technical problems. This narrow focus neglects plural values, lived experiences, and democratic judgement essential for transformative change. We advance a reflexive AI governance approach that treats AI as a socio-technical assemblage shaping problem framing, knowledge legitimisation, and authority distribution. Synthesising material, technical, epistemic, and ethico-political challenges, the paper draws on Aristotelian notions of techne, episteme, and phronesis to outline three reflexivity dimensions: design, epistemological, and engagement. Using a four-phase governance cycle and a protected area management scenario, we show how reflexivity can help align AI with plural, justice-oriented transformation pathways. Reflexive AI governance grounded in sustainability's visions fosters deliberation, inclusivity, and ecological sufficiency, enabling democratic capacities over whether and how AI should be used, including the legitimate possibility of non-use, restriction, or withdrawal.