Diverse values of nature for sustainability.

Twenty-five years since foundational publications on valuing ecosystem services for human well-being1,2, addressing the global biodiversity crisis3 still implies confronting barriers to incorporating nature's diverse values into decision-making. These barriers include powerful interests supported by current norms and legal rules such as property rights, which determine whose values and which values of nature are acted on. A better understanding of how and why nature is (under)valued is more urgent than ever4. Notwithstanding agreements to incorporate nature's values into actions, including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF)5 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals6, predominant environmental and development policies still prioritize a subset of values, particularly those linked to markets, and ignore other ways people relate to and benefit from nature7. Arguably, a 'values crisis' underpins the intertwined crises of biodiversity loss and climate change8, pandemic emergence9 and socio-environmental injustices10. On the basis of more than 50,000 scientific publications, policy documents and Indigenous and local knowledge sources, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) assessed knowledge on nature's diverse values and valuation methods to gain insights into their role in policymaking and fuller integration into decisions7,11. Applying this evidence, combinations of values-centred approaches are proposed to improve valuation and address barriers to uptake, ultimately leveraging transformative changes towards more just (that is, fair treatment of people and nature, including inter- and intragenerational equity) and sustainable futures.

A framework for catalysing the rapid scaling of urban biodiversity stewardship programs.

Despite growing interest in promoting urban biodiversity conservation, there are few concrete examples of how nature stewardship initiatives can be rapidly scaled, in number and across landscapes. This paper explores the factors that promote or inhibit the proliferation and impact of collaborations between citizens and their local governments that involve residents in municipal biodiversity conservation efforts in their gardens (wildlife gardening). We studied the Gardens for Wildlife Victoria network in Australia, which supports citizen-agency co-development of municipal wildlife gardening programs. In three years the network has expanded from one program to 39 initiatives in various developmental stages in 49% of the local government areas in the state of Victoria. Data are drawn from 21 semi-structured interviews of network participants running or developing programs in 12 municipalities, complemented by a survey of 33 network participants, and participants' evaluation of network workshops. We find that scaling occurs in four different domains of policy, values, locales and participants. Scaling is influenced by six interlinked factors: empowerment of actors; a civil-agency co-design and delivery model; conservation framing; links to and between landscapes and communities; resources - particularly time; and the network's role in promoting innovation and shared learning. Key barriers include short-term, top-down, and monetary agency foci; conservation framed as the principal domain of specialists and professionals; and prioritisation of listed species rather than local species more broadly. We present a framework for considering scaling of biodiversity stewardship and related factors.

Blue justice: A survey for eliciting perceptions of environmental justice among coastal planners' and small-scale fishers in Northern-Norway.

Ocean-based economic development arising from an increasing interest in the 'blue economy' is placing ecosystems and small-scale fisheries under pressure. The dominant policy response for dealing with multiple uses is the allocation of coastal space through coastal zone planning (CZP). Recent studies have shown that the rush to develop the blue economy and regulate coastal activity can result in social injustices and the exclusion of less powerful and unrecognized groups (e.g., small-scale fishers, women, Indigenous peoples and youth). To achieve a primary goal of the 2030 sustainable development agenda to "leave no one behind", it is important to understand the implications of coastal planning and development for these groups. Here, we present a social survey protocol for examining perceptions of justice related to small-scale fisheries (SSF) in the context of the blue economy in coastal areas. Specifically, we designed the survey instrument and sampling protocol to assess whether decisions about the use of the coastal zone over the last five years have i) followed principles of good governance, ii) recognized fishers' knowledge, culture and rights and iii) been attentive to impacts of changed coastal zone use on fisheries. The survey will engage coastal planners (N = app. 120) and fishers (N = app. 4300) in all the coastal municipalities (N = 81) in Northern-Norway. The sampling protocol is designed to ensure representation of different sectors of society, including those defined by gender, age, ethnicity and occupation (e.g., small-scale fishers, large-scale fishers, coastal planners).

A typology of barriers and enablers of scientific evidence use in conservation practice.

Over the last decade, there has been an increased focus (and pressure) in conservation practice globally towards evidence-based or evidence-informed decision making. Despite calls for increased use of scientific evidence, it often remains aspirational for many conservation organizations. Contributing to this is the lack of guidance on how to identify and classify the array of complex reasons limiting research use. In this study, we collated a comprehensive inventory of 230 factors that facilitate or limit the use of scientific evidence in conservation management decisions, through interviews with conservation practitioners in South Africa and UK and a review of the healthcare literature. We used the inventory, combined with concepts from knowledge exchange and research use theories, to construct a taxonomy that categorizes the barriers and enablers. We compared the similarities and differences between the taxonomies from the conservation and the healthcare fields, and highlighted the common barriers and enablers found within conservation organizations in the United Kingdom and South Africa. The most commonly mentioned barriers limiting the use of scientific evidence in our case studies were associated with the day-to-day decision-making processes of practitioners, and the organizational structures, management processes and resource constraints of conservation organizations. The key characteristics that facilitated the use of science in conservation decisions were associated with an organization's structure, decision-making processes and culture, along with practitioners' attitudes and the relationships between scientists and practitioners. This taxonomy and inventory of barriers and enablers can help researchers, practitioners and other conservation actors to identify aspects within their organizations and cross-institutional networks that limit research use - acting as a guide on how to strengthen the science-practice interface.

Fostering Children's Connection to Nature Through Authentic Situations: The Case of Saving Salamanders at School.

The aim of this paper is to explore how children learn to form new relationships with nature. It draws on a longitudinal case study of children participating in a stewardship project involving the conservation of salamanders during the school day in Stockholm, Sweden. The qualitative method includes two waves of data collection: when a group of 10-year-old children participated in the project (2015) and 2 years after they participated (2017). We conducted 49 interviews with children as well as using participant observations and questionnaires. We found indications that children developed sympathy for salamanders and increased concern and care for nature, and that such relationships persisted 2 years after participation. Our rich qualitative data suggest that whole situations of sufficient unpredictability triggering free exploration of the area, direct sensory contact and significant experiences of interacting with a species were important for children's development of affective relationships with the salamander species and with nature in an open-ended sense. Saving the lives of trapped animals enabled direct sensory interaction, feedback, increased understanding, and development of new skills for dynamically exploring further ways of saving species in an interactive process experienced as deeply meaningful, enjoyable and connecting. The behavioral setting instilled a sense of pride and commitment, and the high degree of responsibility given to the children while exploring the habitat during authentic situations enriched children's enjoyment. The study has implications for the design of education programs that aim to connect children with nature and for a child-sensitive urban policy that supports authentic nature situations in close spatial proximity to preschools and schools.

Sense of Place, Fast and Slow: The Potential Contributions of Affordance Theory to Sense of Place.

Over the past 40 years, the sense of place concept has been well-established across a range of applications and settings; however, most theoretical developments have "privileged the slow." Evidence suggests that place attachments and place meanings are slow to evolve, sometimes not matching material or social reality (lag effects), and also tending to inhibit change. Here, we present some key blind spots in sense of place scholarship and then suggest how a reconsideration of sense of place as "fast" and "slow" could fill them. By this, we mean how direct and immediate perception-action processes presented in affordance theory (resulting in immediately perceived place meanings) can complement slower forms of social construction presented in sense of place scholarship. Key blind spots are that sense of place scholarship: (1) rarely accounts for sensory or immediately perceived meanings; (2) pays little attention to how place meanings are the joint product of attributes of environmental features and the attributes of the individual; and (3) assumes that the relationship between place attachment and behavior is linear and not constituted in dynamic relations among mind, culture, and environment. We show how these blind spots can begin to be addressed by reviewing key insights from affordance theory, and through the presentation of applied examples. We discuss future empirical research directions in terms of: (1) how sense of place is both perceived and socially constructed; (2) whether perceived and socially constructed dimensions of place can relate to one another when perceived meanings become unsituated; and (3) how place attachment may change over different stages of the life course based upon dynamic relationships between processes of perception-action and social construction. We conclude with insights into how processes of perception-action and social construction could be included in the design and management of urban landscapes.

Fostering incidental experiences of nature through green infrastructure planning.

Concern for a diminished human experience of nature and subsequent decreased human well-being is addressed via a consideration of green infrastructure's potential to facilitate unplanned or incidental nature experience. Incidental nature experience is conceptualized and illustrated in order to consider this seldom addressed aspect of human interaction with nature in green infrastructure planning. Special attention has been paid to the ability of incidental nature experience to redirect attention from a primary activity toward an unplanned focus (in this case, nature phenomena). The value of such experience for human well-being is considered. The role of green infrastructure to provide the opportunity for incidental nature experience may serve as a nudge or guide toward meaningful interaction. These ideas are explored using examples of green infrastructure design in two Nordic municipalities: Kristianstad, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark. The outcome of the case study analysis coupled with the review of literature is a set of sample recommendations for how green infrastructure can be designed to support a range of incidental nature experiences with the potential to support human well-being.

A Framework to Assess Where and How Children Connect to Nature.

The design of the green infrastructure in urban areas largely ignores how people's relation to nature, or human-nature connection (HNC), can be nurtured. One practical reason for this is the lack of a framework to guide the assessment of where people, and more importantly children, experience significant nature situations and establish nature routines. This paper develops such a framework. We employed a mixed-method approach to understand what qualities of nature situations connect children to nature (RQ1), what constitutes children's HNC (RQ2), and how significant nature situations and children's HNC relate to each other over time (RQ3). We first interviewed professionals in the field of connecting children to nature (N = 26), performed inductive thematic analysis of these interviews, and then further examined the inductive findings by surveying specialists (N = 275). We identified 16 qualities of significant nature situations (e.g., "awe," "engagement of senses," "involvement of mentors") and 10 abilities that constitute children's HNC (e.g., "feeling comfortable in natural spaces," "feeling attached to natural spaces," "taking care of nature"). We elaborated three principles to answer our research questions: (1) significant nature situations are various and with differing consequences for children's HNC; (2) children's HNC is a complex embodied ability; (3) children's HNC progresses over time through diverse nature routines. Together, these findings form the Assessment framework for Children's Human Nature Situations (ACHUNAS). ACHUNAS is a comprehensive framework that outlines what to quantify or qualify when assessing "child-nature connecting" environments. It guides the assessment of where and how children connect to nature, stimulating both the design of nature-connecting human habitats as well as pedagogical approaches to HNC.

The farmer as a landscape steward: Comparing local understandings of landscape stewardship, landscape values, and land management actions.

We develop a landscape stewardship classification which distinguishes between farmers' understanding of landscape stewardship, their landscape values, and land management actions. Forty semi-structured interviews were conducted with small-holder (<5 acres), medium-holders (5-100 acres), and large-holders (>100 acres) in South-West Devon, UK. Thematic analysis revealed four types of stewardship understandings: (1) an environmental frame which emphasized the farmers' role in conserving or restoring wildlife; (2) a primary production frame which emphasized the farmers' role in taking care of primary production assets; (3) a holistic frame focusing on farmers' role as a conservationist, primary producer, and manager of a range of landscape values, and; (4) an instrumental frame focusing on the financial benefits associated with compliance with agri-environmental schemes. We compare the landscape values and land management actions that emerged across stewardship types, and discuss the global implications of the landscape stewardship classification for the engagement of farmers in landscape management.

A multidisciplinary conceptualization of conservation opportunity.

An opportunity represents an advantageous combination of circumstances that allows goals to be achieved. We reviewed the nature of opportunity and how it manifests in different subsystems (e.g., biophysical, social, political, economic) as conceptualized in other bodies of literature, including behavior, adoption, entrepreneur, public policy, and resilience literature. We then developed a multidisciplinary conceptualization of conservation opportunity. We identified 3 types of conservation opportunity: potential, actors remove barriers to problem solving by identifying the capabilities within the system that can be manipulated to create support for conservation action; traction, actors identify windows of opportunity that arise from exogenous shocks, events, or changes that remove barriers to solving problems; and existing, everything is in place for conservation action (i.e., no barriers exist) and an actor takes advantage of the existing circumstances to solve problems. Different leverage points characterize each type of opportunity. Thus, unique stages of opportunity identification or creation and exploitation exist: characterizing the system and defining problems; identifying potential solutions; assessing the feasibility of solutions; identifying or creating opportunities; and taking advantage of opportunities. These stages can be undertaken independently or as part of a situational analysis and typically comprise the first stage, but they can also be conducted iteratively throughout a conservation planning process. Four types of entrepreneur can be identified (business, policy, social, and conservation), each possessing attributes that enable them to identify or create opportunities and take advantage of them. We examined how different types of conservation opportunity manifest in a social-ecological system (the Great Barrier Reef) and how they can be taken advantage of. Our multidisciplinary conceptualization of conservation opportunity strengthens and legitimizes the concept.

Integrating biological and social values when prioritizing places for biodiversity conservation.

The consideration of information on social values in conjunction with biological data is critical for achieving both socially acceptable and scientifically defensible conservation planning outcomes. However, the influence of social values on spatial conservation priorities has received limited attention and is poorly understood. We present an approach that incorporates quantitative data on social values for conservation and social preferences for development into spatial conservation planning. We undertook a public participation GIS survey to spatially represent social values and development preferences and used species distribution models for 7 threatened fauna species to represent biological values. These spatially explicit data were simultaneously included in the conservation planning software Zonation to examine how conservation priorities changed with the inclusion of social data. Integrating spatially explicit information about social values and development preferences with biological data produced prioritizations that differed spatially from the solution based on only biological data. However, the integrated solutions protected a similar proportion of the species' distributions, indicating that Zonation effectively combined the biological and social data to produce socially feasible conservation solutions of approximately equivalent biological value. We were able to identify areas of the landscape where synergies and conflicts between different value sets are likely to occur. Identification of these synergies and conflicts will allow decision makers to target communication strategies to specific areas and ensure effective community engagement and positive conservation outcomes.

The acceptability of climate change in agricultural communities: comparing responses across variability and change.

This study examined how the terms used to describe climate change influence landholder acceptability judgements and attitudes toward climate change at the local scale. Telephone surveys were conducted with landholders from viticultural (n = 97) or cereal growing (n = 195) backgrounds in rural South Australia. A variety of descriptive and inferential statistics were used to examine the influence of human-induced climate change and winter/spring drying trend terms on adaptation responses and uncertainties surrounding climate change science. We found that the terms used to describe climate change leads to significant differences in adaptation response and levels of scepticism surrounding climate change in rural populations. For example, those respondents who accepted human induced climate change as a reality were significantly more likely to invest in technologies to sow crops earlier or increase the amount of water stored or harvested on their properties than respondents who accepted the winter/spring drying trend as a reality. The results have implications for the targeting of climate change science messages to both rural landholders and communities of practice involved in climate change adaptation planning and implementation.

Assessing conservation opportunity on private land: socio-economic, behavioral, and spatial dimensions.

This study presents a method for assessing conservation opportunity on private land based on landholders' socio-economic, behavioral, and farm characteristics. These characteristics include age, gender, education, level of off-farm income, farm size, proportion of remnant native vegetation on-farm, and ecological value of native vegetation on-farm. A sample of landholders who own greater than 2 ha of land in the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin region were sent a mail-based survey about their values and preferences for environmental management (N = 659, 52% response). Cross-tabulations and ANOVA statistical analysis techniques were used to compare the socio-economic attributes across three landholder classes: disengaged, moderately engaged, and highly engaged in native vegetation planting. Results indicate that highly engaged landholders were more likely to be female, formally educated, hobby farmers who managed small parcels of land and have high off-farm incomes, whereas disengaged landholders held significantly stronger farming connections (more farming experience, family have lived on the farm for more generations). Spatial analysis revealed area-specific differences in conservation opportunity and conservation priority. In some areas, properties of high ecological value were managed by highly engaged landholders, but nearby properties of high value were managed by moderately engaged or disengaged landholders. Environmental managers therefore cannot assume areas of high conservation priority will be areas of high conservation opportunity. At the regional scale, the potential for revegetation seems most promising within the moderately engaged landholder group considering the vast amount of land managed by this group in areas of high ecological value, particularly within the less represented Mallee and Coorong and Rangelands sub-regions. We suggest that incentive schemes which purchase conservation need to be targeted at disengaged landholders; mentoring schemes led by commercial farmers highly engaged in native vegetation planting should be directed at moderately engaged landholders, and; awards programs which acknowledge conservation successes should be targeted at highly engaged landholders.

Integrating local and scientific knowledge for environmental management.

This paper evaluates the processes and mechanisms available for integrating different types of knowledge for environmental management. Following a review of the challenges associated with knowledge integration, we present a series of questions for identifying, engaging, evaluating and applying different knowledges during project design and delivery. These questions are used as a basis to compare three environmental management projects that aimed to integrate knowledge from different sources in the United Kingdom, Solomon Islands and Australia. Comparative results indicate that integrating different types of knowledge is inherently complex - classification of knowledge is arbitrary and knowledge integration perspectives are qualitatively very different. We argue that there is no single optimum approach for integrating local and scientific knowledge and encourage a shift in science from the development of knowledge integration products to the development of problem-focussed, knowledge integration processes. These processes need to be systematic, reflexive and cyclic so that multiple views and multiple methods are considered in relation to an environmental management problem. The results have implications for the way in which researchers and environmental managers undertake and evaluate knowledge integration projects.