FSC-certified forest management benefits large mammals compared to non-FSC.

More than a quarter of the world's tropical forests are exploited for timber1. Logging impacts biodiversity in these ecosystems, primarily through the creation of forest roads that facilitate hunting for wildlife over extensive areas. Forest management certification schemes such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) are expected to mitigate impacts on biodiversity, but so far very little is known about the effectiveness of FSC certification because of research design challenges, predominantly limited sample sizes2,3. Here we provide this evidence by using 1.3 million camera-trap photos of 55 mammal species in 14 logging concessions in western equatorial Africa. We observed higher mammal encounter rates in FSC-certified than in non-FSC logging concessions. The effect was most pronounced for species weighing more than 10 kg and for species of high conservation priority such as the critically endangered forest elephant and western lowland gorilla. Across the whole mammal community, non-FSC concessions contained proportionally more rodents and other small species than did FSC-certified concessions. The first priority for species protection should be to maintain unlogged forests with effective law enforcement, but for logged forests our findings provide convincing data that FSC-certified forest management is less damaging to the mammal community than is non-FSC forest management. This study provides strong evidence that FSC-certified forest management or equivalently stringent requirements and controlling mechanisms should become the norm for timber extraction to avoid half-empty forests dominated by rodents and other small species.

Utah flouts FDA with new placental stem cell law.

Measure declares that patients can be given unapproved treatments.

How Indigenous communities in New Zealand are protecting their data.

Concerns about the ethical use of data, privacy, and data harms are front of mind in many jurisdictions as regulators move to impose tighter controls on data privacy and protection, and the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Although efforts to hold corporations to account for their deployment of data and data-driven technologies have been largely welcomed by academics and civil society, there is a growing recognition of the limits to individual data rights, given the capacity of tech giants to link, surveil, target, and make inferences about groups. Questions about whether collective data rights exist, and how they can be recognized and protected, have provided fertile ground for researchers but have yet to penetrate the broader discourse on data rights and regulation.

Natural capital approaches for the optimal design of policies for nature recovery.

By embedding a spatially explicit ecosystem services modelling tool within a policy simulator we examine the insights that natural capital analysis can bring to the design of policies for nature recovery. Our study is illustrated through a case example of policies incentivising the establishment of new natural habitat in England. We find that a policy mirroring the current practice of offering payments per hectare of habitat creation fails to break even, delivering less value in improved flows of ecosystem services than public money spent and only 26% of that which is theoretically achievable. Using optimization methods, we discover that progressively more efficient outcomes are delivered by policies that optimally price activities (34%), quantities of environmental change (55%) and ecosystem service value flows (81%). Further, we show that additionally attaining targets for unmonetized ecosystem services (in our case, biodiversity) demands trade-offs in delivery of monetized services. For some policy instruments it is not even possible to achieve the targets. Finally, we establish that extending policy instruments to offer payments for unmonetized services delivers target-achieving and value-maximizing policy designs. Our findings reveal that policy design is of first-order importance in determining the efficiency and efficacy of programmes pursuing nature recovery. This article is part of the theme issue 'Bringing nature into decision-making'.

Having children in cross-border contexts: late-family formation among homoparental families in Spain.

Considered until recently unfit to rear children, non-heterosexual people have been excluded from forming families in most countries. Many, worldwide, demand access to family formation, claiming the same aptitudes as heterosexual people for raising children. However, when non-heterosexual singles and couples want to become parents in Spain, they must consider transnational contexts, resorting to inter-country adoption or surrogacy abroad, processes that contribute to delay their family formation. They must consider not only Spanish sociocultural conditions, but other countries' legal restrictions regarding parents' gender, social status, and sexual identity. These families experience great difficulty in gaining access to reproductive health services. Based on multi-site ethnographic fieldwork, this text addresses how, despite legislative changes allowing homoparental family formation in Spain, these parents must overcome complex bureaucratic processes when they decide to have children, while facing homophobic attitudes and policies in their quests to become parents.

Between choices and decisions. Genetics in homoparental families through surrogacy in Argentina. / Entre elecciones y decisiones. La genética en familias homoparentales por gestación por sustitución en Argentina.

Comprehensive access to medically assisted reproduction procedures and techniques in Argentina has been assured by National Law No. 26,862 since 2013. This Law does not include surrogacy procedures, and the lack of specific regulation shifts practices to a paralegal setting. In this context, planned parenthood by male couples through surrogacy is performed through actions that convey demands for access rights and active State policies. For these couples, the argument is that surrogacy is the only option to have a child with a genetic bond with at least one of the two parents and recognize both filiatory bonds. This work results from field work in progress with parents from the Province of Buenos Aires running this practice in Argentina. Based on in-depth interviews, we attempted to rebuild personal experiences and analyze the meanings that the narratives construct regarding their parenting, the biological connections in establishing or defining family relationships, and the importance of genetics in constructing and maintaining affiliations.

En Argentina desde 2013 existe la Ley Nacional 26.862 de acceso integral a los procedimientos y técnicas de reproducción médicamente asistida (TRA). Esta no incluye los procedimientos de gestación por sustitución (GS) y la ausencia de regulación específica mueve las prácticas a un escenario de paralegalidad. En este contexto, las paternidades planificadas por parejas de varones a través de GS se llevan adelante mediante acciones que vehiculizan demandas de derechos de acceso y políticas activas del Estado. Para estas parejas el argumento es que la GS representa la única opción para tener un/a hijo/a con vínculo genético con al menos uno de los dos padres y poder reconocer ambos vínculos filiatorios. El presente trabajo es el resultado de un trabajo de campo en proceso con padres de Buenos Aires que están llevando adelante esta práctica en Argentina. A partir de entrevistas en profundidad intentamos reconstruir las experiencias personales y analizar los sentidos que construyen las narrativas respecto de sus parentalidades, las conexiones biológicas en la creación o definición de los lazos familiares y analizamos la importancia de la genética en la construcción y mantenimiento de vínculos filiatorios.