Ambio最新文献

Since ash dieback was reported in Sweden in 2001, the invasive fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus has caused mortality of Fraxinus excelsior, threatening biodiversity, ecosystem functions, landscapes, and hundreds of associated species. This perspective reviews more than a decade of conservation efforts led by Rädda Asken ("Save the Ash"), a citizen science initiative launched in 2013 without dedicated state funding. Public engagement identified nearly 1300 putatively resistant trees, enabled clonal propagation, and established conservation and breeding infrastructure. Research showing that resistance is heritable supports breeding and restoration. However, fragmented financing and limited national coordination have restricted progress. Key uncertainties concern the durability of resistance, maintenance of genetic diversity, secondary pathogens, and the threat of Agrilus planipennis. Sweden's experience demonstrates both the value and limitations of grassroots conservation efforts. Future recovery of ash and its associated biodiversity will require sustained investment in breeding and research, in addition to a coordinated, long-term restoration programme that supports implementation, monitoring and adaptive management.

Other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) serve as an important tool to recognise diverse areas for their contributions to conservation, yet implementation remains slow. A key barrier to implementation is the lack of engagement with stakeholders who manage these areas and thus uncertainty about how best to secure their participation. We interviewed stakeholders representing different land uses that could be candidate OECMs in Australia, to capture their perspectives on OECMs and the factors that may motivate or deter their engagement. Stakeholder responses revealed an openness to and interest in OECMs, although many questions that are critical to their participation were raised. Concerns around long-term obligations and conflict between different management objectives were recurrent limitations to engagement. The opportunity for wider recognition of conservation efforts and increased social licence were key motivating factors. Important differences between stakeholder groups indicate that tailored strategies may improve engagement, which is a critical step in progressing OECMs.

How close are we to achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs)? No one really knows. As the world enters the countdown to 2030, uncertainty remains. Progress remains fragmented, hindered by data gaps, opaque governance, and politicization that limits scientific communication and real-time policy adaptation. Limitations reveal the need to rethink how sustainability is measured, reported, and governed. Using the SDGs, we argue that monitoring systems fail to capture real-time dynamics, leaving humanity rudderless amid sustainability crises. In an era of big data, future sustainability agendas must evolve into adaptive, data-integrated frameworks capable of continuous feedback and adjustment. However, weaknesses in progress measurement and reporting are not only technical. They also reflect data politics, because decisions over which indicators count, who produces them, how they are validated, and whose infrastructures and funding sustain them are shaped by power relations that may influence what becomes visible and what remains unmeasured.

Human-wildlife interactions present both challenges and opportunities across Europe. Managing these interactions often requires decisions that fall between reactive (taking action after a problem arises) and proactive (anticipating and preventing negative impacts) management. This study examines factors influencing public attitudes toward proactive and reactive wildlife management in six European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom), based on an online survey of 2400 participants. We relied on the cognitive hierarchy framework to explain relationships between management attitudes and factors such as wildlife value orientations, risk perceptions, and perceptions of red deer (Cervus elaphus L.). Attitudes toward wildlife management were generally shaped by value orientations and risk perception. Mutualism was associated with support for proactive wildlife and human protection, whereas domination was associated with reactive and proactive management aimed at protecting human interests. Higher perceived risk further increased support for proactive management strategies. These results provide practical insights into how public attitudes relate to wildlife management.

Illegal wildlife trade is often male dominated at harvest, yet women's roles across supply chains are under-examined. This study adds substantially to this growing body of knowledge drawing on 112 semi-structured interviews with law enforcement and illegal wildlife trade experts in South Africa, Hong Kong, and Canada. We show women participate in finance and money laundering, brokerage, logistics, retail, online marketing, and couriering, with occasional leadership. Women are also strategically used to shield men. Drawing on conservation and feminist criminology-specifically women's liberation and strain/marginalization perspectives-alongside an intersectional framework, we interpret role differentiation across contexts. While perceptions-based data and male-dominated enforcement may bias visibility, patterns are consistent. We recommend gender-competent, intersectional counter-illegal wildlife trade strategies and better gender-disaggregated data.

Collaboration and spanning boundaries across parties is needed in climate adaptation planning to combat the impacts of climate change. Spatial designers are amongst the professionals that take up boundary spanning activities in these kinds of complex planning contexts. However, boundary spanning work and opportunities are conditioned by many external factors. Building on existing insights in boundary spanning literature, this study investigated the environmental, organizational and program-related conditions for boundary spanning by spatial designers in two climate adaptation planning programs: Sigmaplan in Belgium and Rebuild by Design in New York/New Jersey (USA). A devastating climate event, a dominant or changing policy paradigm, and the physical and institutional setting emerged as influential environmental conditions for boundary spanning in climate adaptation programs. Boundary spanning by spatial designers was strongly determined by the structure and design of the program, and by the role and the position of the designers within the program.

Rural sustainability policies often fail in territories shaped by ecological variability and mobile livelihoods, as they assume stability, fixed land use, and technical control. This article examines transhumant goat pastoralism in Malargüe, Argentine Andes, as a situated response to uncertainty and a source of insights for sustainability governance. Based on seven years of ethnographic research, we analyze how pastoralist families sustain livelihoods, manage common resources, and reproduce territorial relations through seasonal mobility, collective care, and vernacular commoning. Rather than treating mobility as a constraint, we show how transhumant practices constitute a decentralized form of ecological governance aligning production and resource management with environmental variability. Transhumant pastoralism operates as a sufficiency-oriented socio-ecological economy capable of inhabiting uncertainty without enclosure or stabilization. By foregrounding commoning and mobility as governance practices, the article contributes to sustainability transitions debates and offers transferable lessons for designing policies better suited to uncertain, climate-sensitive rural territories.

Increasingly frequent and intense floods, driven by climate change in Poland, highlight the need to raise public awareness of their causes, impacts, and adaptation strategies, with education playing a key role. A survey among over 200 final-year engineering students at the Cracow University of Technology examined attitudes toward climate change, floods, and adaptation measures. Results showed that 89% considered climate change a serious problem, while 80% emphasized the need for pro-environmental actions. The most frequently identified consequences were heatwaves, droughts, and floods, whereas flood prevention was associated mainly with protective infrastructure, water monitoring, and spatial planning. Experience of the 2024 flood in Poland significantly increased risk perception, while proximity to rivers was not decisive. Women more often than men viewed climate change as a serious threat and declared greater readiness for pro-environmental engagement. Media were the main source of knowledge, highlighting the importance of academic education.

Romania hosts one of Europe's largest brown bear populations, but rising human-bear encounters and related casualties raise concerns about their drivers and future population management. Using >10 000 encounter reports (2019-2024) in a hierarchical occupancy model accounting for detection processes, we show that bear presence in human-dominated spaces is linked to food conditioning, habituation, and shaped by historical management. Bears occur more often in high wildland-urban interface areas, especially those closer to communist-era elite-hunting grounds with feeding sites. These patterns reflect a long-term legacy of 1960s population management policies interacting with environmental and behavioral processes to shape recent bear behavior. We call for management addressing ecological and social sustainability by phasing out supplemental feeding, reducing habituation and food conditioning, improving public knowledge of bear ecology, and recognizing historical legacies to promote coexistence.

Primary and old-growth forests are globally valued for their biodiversity, ecosystem services, and cultural significance. The EU biodiversity strategy and EU forest strategy for 2030 require strict protection of remaining primary and old-growth forests, yet they cover only about 3% of EU forest area and remain highly threatened. The European Commission's guidelines define old-growth forests using three main indicators-native tree species, deadwood, and large/old trees-supported by four complementary indicators. Implementing these indicators for boreal and hemiboreal old-growth forests in Europe currently lack science-based operational criteria that meet EU legal standards. We provide recommendations for implementing European Commission's indicators with science-based criteria to minimize misclassification and ensure cost-effective conservation. Key criteria include native species dominance, ≥ 5% deadwood of the total wood volume, and ≥ 20 large/old trees per hectare. Additional guidance is offered for regeneration patterns, structural complexity, microhabitats, and indicator species, emphasizing that all indicators should be applied collectively.