How does central-local interaction affect local environmental governance? Insights from the transformation of central environmental protection inspection in China.

In recent years, one of the most important and innovative policy initiatives introduced by the Chinese government in the field of environmental protection and ecological civilization construction is the Central Environmental Protection Inspection (CEPI). CEPI is seen as a vital tool to encourage local implementation of environmental protection responsibility. Over the course of its operation (eight years), CEPI has transformed from the "campaign" phase to the "convention" phase. It is noted that while provincial governments face a common high-pressure environment created by CEPI, governance scenarios, behaviors, and performance vary across the country significantly. To better understand local governments' environmental governance behaviors under the transformation of CEPI, an integrated analysis framework consisting of two key elements, "central dominance" and "local proactiveness", is constructed based on the central-local interactions under the principal-agent model. Based on this framework, we conducted a multi-case comparative analysis of four classic cases, with the following findings. (1) Along with the operation of CEPI and its transformation, the interaction between the central and local governments leads to four governance scenarios: "control-active cooperation", "control-passive cooperation", "guidance-active promotion", and "guidance-passive promotion". (2) Influenced by various factors such as pressure by the central government, local governments' capabilities and governance motivations, local governments form governance behaviors with varying degrees of proactiveness and autonomy. (3) After examining the governance performance of varying behaviors, it is found that local government's "active promotion" behavior can achieve higher governance effectiveness in the "convention" phase. Therefore, it is of policy implication that local governments should be guided to transit from "passive cooperation" to "active promotion". This paper has important guiding significance for understanding local environmental governance behaviors under strong top-down institutional pressure.

Collaborative effect of the energy conservation and emission reduction fiscal policy in China.

Government-led national comprehensive demonstration cities for Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction Fiscal Policy (ECERFP) are pivotal for China in addressing environmental governance. Using a panel dataset covering 278 Chinese cities from 2003 to 2019, this study adopts the staggered difference-in-differences (DID) approach to investigate the synergistic impacts of ECERFP on pollution and carbon reduction. The findings indicate that ECERFP contributes to a 3% improvement in pollution reduction performance, a 1.5% enhancement in carbon reduction performance, and a 4% overall increase in combined pollution and carbon reduction efforts. Furthermore, the study examines the heterogeneous effects of ECERFP on environmental performance. ECERFP significantly influences the synergistic efforts in pollution and carbon reduction by fostering green innovation, enhancing energy allocation, and optimizing industrial structures. This study both theoretically and empirically outlines the specific pathways and mechanisms through which "incentive-based" green fiscal policy promotes synergistic pollution and carbon reduction, thus providing a pragmatic foundation for enhancing the role of fiscal policy in environmental governance.

Energy transition and environmental stability prospects for OECD economies: The prominence role of environmental governance, and economic complexity: Does the geopolitical risk matter?

The global increase in temperature and climate change signals the need for humanity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adopt eco-friendly lifestyles. The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in the UAE emphasized this, urging nations to commit to the Paris Agreement and pursue a greener, carbon-free future. In recent decades, climate change has become a critical issue, primarily because of the extensive use of fossil fuels and conventional energy resources. Economic growth has led to an increase in energy consumption and widespread environmental damage. The present study empirically explores whether any changes in environmental governance, economic complexity, geopolitical risk, and the interaction term influence energy transition and environmental stability in OECD economies over the period 1990-2021. Novel econometric methods, including Westerlund co-integration and the Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR), are employed to address complexities such as cross-sectional dependency and panel causality. The key findings from the MMQR technique showed a positive link between environmental governance and economic complexity in driving sustainable energy transitions, thus bolstering environmental resilience in OECD countries. However, economic complexity counterbalances environmental stability. Significantly, geopolitical risk acts as a moderating variable, enhancing the effects of governance and complexity on sustainable energy practices and environmental stability. Based on these insights, this study recommends strategic initiatives, including investment in eco-friendly technologies, to fast-track the shift to clean energy and strengthen environmental resilience in OECD countries. These strategies align with the broader objectives of global sustainable development, offering a path towards a greener and more sustainable future.

Evaluating factors influencing community readiness for post-mining environmental development strategies.

This research delves into the complex factors that affect how ready a community is to embrace new environmental development strategies, which could significantly change the region's social and economic fabric. Using a structured questionnaire, exploratory factor analysis and logistic regression analysis, the study assesses how corporate practices in resource management, environmental governance, efforts to enhance community capabilities, and various demographic factors influence the community's willingness to adapt to change. Despite its intentions to benefit both the mining operations and the community, corporate resource management appears to have a paradoxical impact on the community's willingness to pursue new environmental paths. This negative impact can be attributed to the dependency it creates. Effective corporate resource management can lead to a community becoming heavily reliant on the stability and benefits provided by the mining company. This dependency fosters a sense of security and satisfaction with the status quo, making community members less inclined to explore or support new and potentially disruptive environmental strategies. The stability provided by the mine's resource management practices may inadvertently anchor the community to existing economic structures, reducing their impetus to seek alternative livelihoods or adapt to new socioeconomic conditions. However, it is essential to consider the limitations of this finding. One limitation is the potential bias in community perceptions, where immediate benefits from corporate resource management overshadow long-term considerations for sustainable development. Additionally, the context-specific nature of this study means that these findings may not be universally applicable to all mining communities.

Other's shoes also fit well: AI technologies contribute to China's blue skies as well as carbon reduction.

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology represents a disruptive innovation that has garnered significant interest among researchers for its potential applications in ecological and environmental management. While many studies have investigated the impact of AI on carbon emissions, relatively few have delved into its relationship with air pollution. This study sets out to explore the causal mechanisms and constraints linking AI technologies and air pollution, using provincial panel data collected from 2007 to 2020 in China. Furthermore, this study examines the distinct pathways through which AI technology can ameliorate air pollution and reduce carbon emissions. The findings reveal the following key insights: (1) AI technologies have the capacity to significantly reduce air pollution, particularly in terms of PM2.5 and SO2 levels. (2) AI technologies contribute to enhanced air quality by facilitating adjustments in energy structures, improving energy efficiency, and strengthening digital infrastructure. Nonetheless, it is important to note that adjusting the energy structure remains the most practical approach for reducing carbon emissions. (3) The efficacy of AI in controlling air pollution is influenced by geographical location, economic development level, level of information technology development, resource dependence, and public attention. In conclusion, this study proposes novel policy recommendations to offer fresh perspectives to countries interested in leveraging AI for the advancement of ecological and environmental governance.

Public participation and outgoing audit of natural resources: Evidence from tripartite evolutionary game in China.

Public participation is essential to the success of ecological civilization. Whether public participation can effectively play a role in the outgoing audit of natural resources (OANR) is an important issue that remains to be explored. This paper uses the tripartite evolutionary game to explore the mechanism of the audit subjects, the leading cadres, and the public in the OANR. The research finds that there is a two-way linkage relationship between the audit subjects and the leading cadres. The audit subjects and the leading cadres affect the behavior strategies of the public in the indirect way and direct way, respectively. However, the public lacks the path to directly affect the other two subjects. The tripartite ideal audit model of "the audit subjects conduct due diligence audits, leading cadres perform duties, the public participate" cannot be realized. The external effect of the public's strategic choice is not enough to make the profit or loss of leading cadres change structurally and then change their behaviors. This paper demonstrates the reasons why the public cannot effectively participate in the OANR at the current stage from three aspects, which are the interpretation of the equations for replication dynamics, the particularity of the audit system, and the effectiveness of public participation. Three suggestions are put forward which are encouraging citizens' indirect participation in the OANR, disclosing information about the OANR, and improving citizens' awareness of the OANR. This paper has important guiding significance for other developing countries to promote public participation in natural resource auditing.

Does stakeholder participation improve environmental governance? Evidence from a meta-analysis of 305 case studies.

Participation and collaboration of citizens and organized stakeholders in public decision-making is widely believed to improve environmental governance outputs. However, empirical evidence on the benefits of participatory governance is largely scattered across small-N case studies. To synthesize the available case-based evidence, we conducted a broad case-based meta-analysis across 22 Western democracies, including 305 individual cases of public environmental decision-making. We asked: How do 'more' participatory decision-making processes compare against 'less' participatory ones in fostering - or hindering - strong environmental governance outputs, (i.e. environmental provisions in plans, agreements or permits)? Which design features make a difference? What role does the decision-making context play? How do results change if we control for the intentions of the leading governmental agency? To capture the central design features of decision-making processes, we distinguish three dimensions of participation: the intensity of communication among participants and process organizers; the extent to which participants can shape decisions ("power delegation"); and the extent to which different stakeholder groups are represented. Our regression analysis yields robust evidence that these three design features of participation impact upon the environmental standard of governance outputs, even when controlling for the goals of governmental agencies. Power delegation is shown to be the most stable predictor of strong environmental outputs. However, communication intensity only predicts the conservation-related standard of outputs, but not the environmental health-related standard of outputs. Participants' environmental stance was another strong predictor, with considerable variation across different contexts. While our results remain broadly stable across a wide range of contexts, certain contextual conditions stood out in shaping the relation between participation and environmental outputs. Overall, our findings can inform the design of participatory processes that deliver governance outputs of a high environmental standard.

Pathways for governance opportunities: Social network analysis to create targeted and effective policies for agricultural and environmental development.

Participatory techniques are widely recognized as essential in addressing the challenges of agri-environmental policy and decision-making. Furthermore, it is well known that stakeholder analysis and social network analysis are useful methods in the identification of actors that are involved in a system and the connections between them. To identify key stakeholders and improve the transfer of information from national-to farm-level, we compared a stakeholder analysis with farmer-centric networks for primary productivity, carbon regulation and biodiversity through the case study of Latvia. Farmer-centric networks show a higher number of stakeholders communicating on the topic of primary productivity network comparing to other topics. We found three pathways for improving knowledge transfer in agri-environmental governance: horizontal strengthening of farming community, horizontal strengthening of policy departments, and vertical strengthening between policy departments and farmers. The first step is to ensure that policy-makers have a common understanding of the results that should be achieved. The second step is the transfer of know-how between farmers to develop new solutions. The third step is the training of advisers in the land multifunctionality and the strengthening of communication and knowledge transfer between policy departments and farmers in order to jointly achieve the desired direction at that national level. Long-term cooperation between many stakeholders, including knowledge transfer, the development and implementation of solutions, and monitoring are essential in order to adequately address global societal challenges. The application of our mixed methods approach to elucidate pathways for improved governance of knowledge and information is of direct relevance to other jurisdictions seeking to transition towards multifunctional and sustainable land management.

Leading the charge: A qualitative case-study of leadership conditions in collaborative environmental governance structures.

Collaborative governance structures are increasingly common among natural resource managers. While studies have assessed the conditions under which collaborative action occurs, little emphasis has been placed on the role leadership may play in joint-jurisdictional systems. Management of species under the Endangered Species Act offers an opportunity to assess the collaboration of federal, state, and tribal resource agencies. The Gulf of Maine Distinct Population Segment of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) was managed under a structure called the Atlantic Salmon Recovery Framework (ASRF) from 2011 to 2019. Using the ASRF as a case study, we examined the influence of leadership approaches on perceived program efficacy, member buy-in, and experience through semi-structured interviews. Participant reflections revealed three major leadership themes that participants found inadequate: (1) shared goals, (2) transparency, and (3) trust. Collaborative approaches that foster these leadership conditions may increase adaptive capacity and the likelihood of sustained success in this, and other, environmental governance structures.

Does vertical supervision promote regional green transformation? Evidence from Central Environmental Protection Inspection.

Vertical supervision is an important institutional arrangement designed to overcome the challenges of environmental governance and promotion of green development in the region. Based on the panel data of 278 cities in China from 2010 to 2018, we use Central Environmental Protection Inspection (CEPI) as an exogenous policy and the multi-period Difference-in-Differences method to test the role of vertical supervision in promoting regional green transformation. Our findings indicate that CEPI, a typical vertical supervision policy, effectively promotes green transformation regionally by reducing local pollution emissions and improving total factor productivity. The analysis of mechanism shows that local governments mainly promote regional green transformation by increasing the investment in pollutant governance, research and development in green technologies, and updating fixed assets. Our study provides a valuable reference for the implementation of vertical supervision policies and effective governance of local governments by the central government.

Indigenous Participation and the Incorporation of Indigenous Knowledge and Perspectives in Global Environmental Governance Forums: a Systematic Review.

Global environmental governance (GEG) forums, such as those convened through the United Nations, result in the development of monumental guiding frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference of Parties (COPs) Aichi and post-2020 targets. The ratification of policy frameworks by member and/or signatory states can result in major shifts in environmental policy and decision-making and has major implications for Indigenous communities. In this article, we present systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature on Indigenous participation in GEG forums, and focus on the specific questions: (1) what GEG forums include Indigenous participation and (2) how do Indigenous peoples participate in GEG forums, including how their perspectives and knowledges are framed and/or included/excluded within governance discussions, decisions, and negotiations. We provide a bibliometric analysis of the articles and derive seven inductively determined themes from our review: (1) Critical governance forums and decisions; (2) inclusion and exclusion of Indigenous voices and knowledge in GEG forums; (3) capacity barriers; (4) knowledge hierarchies: inclusion, integration, and bridging; (5) representation and grouping of Indigenous peoples in GEG; (6) need for networks among and between Indigenous peoples and other governance actors; and (7) Indigenous peoples influence on GEG decisions and processes. Our findings can be used to improve GEG forums by contributing to the development strategies that address the barriers and inequities to meaningful and beneficial Indigenous participation and can contribute to future research that is focused on understanding the experiences of Indigenous peoples within GEG forums.

Finally Throwing Those Wellies Away? Collaborating in Search of a Solution for Venice Flooding.

Collaborative governance is often advocated as a way to address 'messy' problems that individual stakeholders cannot solve alone. However, whereas stakeholders' participation brings a broad range of response options to public decision-making, the complexities of the perspectives at stake may also lead to conflicts and stalemates. This is especially true in collaborative environmental governance, where conflict is common and stakeholders' interdependence in more than one arena tends to be frequent. Based on a longitudinal field study, we explore how to break stalemates in collaborative environmental governance when they occur, and move the collaboration towards a shared decision. The successful collaborative decision-making for the defence of Venice against floods represents our empirical setting. Our findings show that, in this context, the combined effect of three factors seems to be important to break stalemates and lead stakeholders towards a shared decision in collaborative environmental governance: stakeholders' reactivation, fear of marginalization and leaders acting as orchestrators.

Conceptual and Analytical Diversity of Environmental Governance in Latin America: A Systematic Review.

The analysis of environmental governance and the analytical frameworks used to study this concept in Latin America show that the term is diffuse and polysemic. The term governance refers to democratic societies that theoretically encourage the plural participation of actors in decision making to solve public or collective socioenvironmental problems. However, in Latin America, there is a broad social perception of a democratic deficit that affects the socioenvironmental sphere. The objective of this work is to determine the main trends in studies on environmental governance in Latin America, the most commonly used analytical frameworks and the predominant approaches to characterize the scientific and political uses of the concept. A systematic literature review is carried out on databases in English and Spanish, and 140 articles that consider environmental governance using various analytical frameworks are analyzed. The main finding is the predominance of a critical perspective on the effectiveness of environmental governance, as well as the associated institutional components and social organizations, because the democratic practices that should support it are questionable.

Evaluating Change in Representation and Coordination in Collaborative Governance Over Time: A Study of Environmental Justice Councils.

Collaborative governance involves convening of government and non-government actors in policy formulation and implementation. Motivating collaborative governance is the expectation that engagement of diverse arrays of stakeholders in the public policy process allows policymakers and administrators to draw on the expertise, resources, and perspectives of these stakeholders to develop more contextually appropriate and effective policies. Since collaborative governance is fundamentally premised on the representation of diverse stakeholders in collaborative processes, assessing the extent to which representation is actualized is paramount. This paper adds to recent scholarship that examines representation dynamics in collaborative governance arrangements, focusing specifically on: (i) how diverse stakeholders included in collaborative governance arrangements are descriptively and substantively represented; (ii) how substantively represented stakeholders are coordinating on informational and relationship building activities; (iii) how representation and coordination dynamics change over time; and (iv) the extent to which representation and coordination dynamics are indicative of collaboration life cycle stage. Additionally, in responding to this latter aim, the paper presents a novel approach for measuring life cycle stages. The paper reports on a comparative case study of environmental justice councils, which are collaborative governance arrangements convened by states to assist in the design and implementation of policies aimed at reducing environmental harms within low income and minority populated communities.

Is it only about science and policy? The 'intergovernmental epistemologies' of global environmental governance.

Although international actors operating under the United Nations umbrella put much faith in the possibility of bridging science and policy through various institutional arrangements, research in the Science and Technology Studies (STS) tradition suggests that different civic epistemologies revolve around environmental degradation issues. Civic epistemologies, which imply peculiar understandings of knowledge across cultures, are not easily bridged. This paper contends that conflicting (civic) epistemologies inevitably emerge in epistemic debates at the intergovernmental level, with strong implications for how science and knowledge are dealt with and understood in environmental negotiations. Drawing on the experience of global soil and land governance and building on the idiom of civic epistemologies, the concept of intergovernmental epistemologies is introduced as an analytical tool to capture the diverging ways of appreciating and validating knowledge in intergovernmental settings. Placing state actors and their perspectives center stage, intergovernmental epistemologies account for the tensions, contestations and politicisation processes of international institutional settings dealing with environmental issues. The paper concludes discussing the consequences of intergovernmental epistemologies for the study of global environmental governance: it cautions about overreliance on approaches based on learning and all-encompassing discourses, emphasizing the value of using STS-derived concepts to investigate the complexity of international environmental negotiations.

Expanding narratives of governance constraints to improve coral reef conservation.

To understand and address the failures of reef governance, it is critical to understand the perceptions of diverse policy makers and practitioners about the challenges they face in achieving their goals. Examining the discourse of policy makers and practitioners can reveal the extent to which these perceptions capture the full spectrum of potential governance challenges, including those related to management, institutional structures and processes, the values and principles underpinning governance, and the social and environmental context. We conducted semistructured interviews with 110 policy makers and practitioners across multiple sectors, scales, and contexts in Barbados, St Kitts and Nevis, Belize, and Honduras. We used thematic qualitative analysis informed by theories of interactive governance and governability to examine the challenges perceived by governance actors. Perceived governance challenges were broadly consistent across countries, but differed by sector (V = 0.819, F6,60 = 1.502, p = 0.01) and by level (community compared with national) (V = 0.194, F1,10 = 2.178, = 0.026). Management inputs and outputs, challenges relating to the socioeconomic context, issues of leadership and power, and stakeholder engagement were commonly cited challenges (>75%). Few respondents discussed challenges relating to the ecological context, governance processes, or the values and principles underpinning governance. We argue that examining perceptions can inform efforts to improve governance and assess the appropriateness of particular management tools under context-specific governance constraints. Furthermore, expanding the narratives of governance challenges to encompass the subtle values and images underpinning governance, and the scale of the challenges faced, can help identify a wider set of opportunities for change.

Expansión de las Narrativas de los Límites de la Gobernanza para Mejorar la Conservación de los Arrecifes de Coral Resumen Es muy importante entender las percepciones que tienen los practicantes y los formuladores de políticas sobre los retos que enfrentan para alcanzar sus objetivos para poder entender y abordar los fracasos en la gobernanza de los arrecifes. El análisis del discurso de los formuladores y los practicantes puede revelar la extensión a la que estas percepciones capturan el espectro completo de los retos potenciales para la gobernanza, incluidos aquellos relacionados con el manejo, las estructuras y los procesos institucionales, los valores y principios que apuntalan la gobernanza y el contexto social y ambiental. Realizamos entrevistas semiestructuradas a 110 formuladores y practicantes de múltiples sectores, escalas y contextos en Barbados, San Cristóbal y Nieves, Belice y Honduras. Usamos un análisis cualitativo temático informado por las teorías de la gobernanza interactiva y la gobernabilidad para examinar los retos percibidos por los actores de gobernanza. A grandes rasgos, los retos percibidos en la gobernanza fueron coherentes entre los países, pero difirieron por sector (V = 0.819, F6,60 = 1.502, p = 0.01) y por nivel (comunitario comparado con nacional) (V = 0.194, F1,10 = 2.178, = 0.026). Las aportaciones y producciones del manejo, los retos relacionados con el contexto socioeconómico, los temas de liderazgo y poder y la participación de los actores fueron los retos mencionados comúnmente (>75%). Pocos respondientes discutieron los retos relacionados con el contexto ecológico, los procesos de gobernanza o los valores y principios que apuntalan la gobernanza. Alegamos que el análisis de las percepciones puede guiar a los esfuerzos para mejorar la gobernanza y evaluar cuán apropiadas son las herramientas particulares de manejo bajo los límites de gobernanza específicos al contexto. Además, expandir las narrativas de los retos de gobernanza para englobar los valores e imágenes sutiles que apuntalan la gobernanza, y la escala del reto al que se enfrenta, puede ayudar a identificar un conjunto más amplio de oportunidades de cambio.

Untapped capacity for resilience in environmental law.

Over the past several decades, environmental governance has made substantial progress in addressing environmental change, but emerging environmental problems require new innovations in law, policy, and governance. While expansive legal reform is unlikely to occur soon, there is untapped potential in existing laws to address environmental change, both by leveraging adaptive and transformative capacities within the law itself to enhance social-ecological resilience and by using those laws to allow social-ecological systems to adapt and transform. Legal and policy research to date has largely overlooked this potential, even though it offers a more expedient approach to addressing environmental change than waiting for full-scale environmental law reform. We highlight examples from the United States and the European Union of untapped capacity in existing laws for fostering resilience in social-ecological systems. We show that governments and other governance agents can make substantial advances in addressing environmental change in the short term-without major legal reform-by exploiting those untapped capacities, and we offer principles and strategies to guide such initiatives.

Why do fisheries management institutions circumvent precautionary guidelines?

The precautionary approach to fisheries management is a central strategy by which domestic and international fisheries management institutions pursue sustainable resource development. Yet fisheries management institutions have often allocated quota for commercial species in direct contradiction of established precautionary guidelines. We use Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO)'s recent allocation of quota for northern cod (Gadus morhua) while the stock is in the critical zone of the institution's precautionary approach as a case study to ask: why do fisheries management institutions circumvent precautionary guidelines? Our results reveal three core tensions characterizing the use of the precautionary approach: stakeholders and rightsholders (1) disagree on the appropriateness and accuracy of the data inputs used to operationalize the precautionary approach, (2) rely on different metrics to gauge risk associated with fishing a stock in the critical zone, and (3) hold competing views concerning what constitutes an appropriate epistemological foundation for the precautionary approach. Our analysis suggests these differing interpretations of precaution and the design of the precautionary approach are central factors explaining why resource allocation decisions differ from precautionary guidelines. We conclude that decisions to allocate quota in contradiction of precautionary guidelines are best explained by stakeholders and rightsholders reframing how decision-makers gauge risk associated with resource exploitation.

Does high-speed rail make firms cleaner in China?

With the firm level datasets from 2004 to 2014, this paper uses the difference in differences (DID) estimator to explore the effects of China's high-speed rail (HSR) on firms' environmental efficiency. We find that China's HSR lowered SO2 intensity (SO2 per unit output value) by approximately 7.9%. More importantly, firms reduce SO2 intensity mainly through innovation, productivity improvement, and the agglomeration of firms. Our additional analyses show that these observed effects of HSR are mainly driven by firms in core cities, while the environmental efficiency of firms in the peripheral cities seems to be unaffected. Heterogeneous effects indicate that the HSR has a more significant effect on dirty firms, state-owned firms, foreign firms, and large firms. Our results suggest that HSR construction could have contributed to the China's environmental governance.

When is a commercial fish species recovered?

The need to reverse decades of species and ecosystem decline has created an imperative to understand the governance of recovery. To pursue this imperative, we ask a question at the centre of recovery governance: when is a commercial species recovered? To answer this question we conduct a case study of northern cod (Gadus morhua, NAFO subdivision 2J3KL), a species perhaps best known for the scale of its biological collapse and subsequent socioeconomic consequences. Northern cod has experienced recent biomass growth, raising the question of when the species can once again be the target of commercial fishing. We conducted 26 interviews with key stakeholders from Newfoundland and Labrador's fishing sector and identify three core discourses characterizing the governance of the northern cod recovery: (1) the biological recovery discourse, (2) the industrial recovery discourse, and (3) the community recovery discourse. We find these recovery discourses are composed of five dimensions: (i) epistemic orientation and inputs, (ii) emphasis on institutions and rules, (iii) framings of risk, (iv) stakeholder priorities, goals, and interests, and (v) different lessons learned from the collapse. Our findings suggest that the recovery of a commercial species is not determined only by biological metrics, but also how decision-makers view the value of different knowledge systems, what frames of risk they find most salient, and the lessons they glean from collapse on behalf of the societies they represent. Our discussion notes that co-productive approaches could supplement adaptive approaches as a potential strategy to reconcile competing discourses.