Language matters for biodiversity.

Language is central to the way people learn about the natural world. A salient concern of the biodiversity conservation arena has been to understand how language can be employed by scientists to communicate knowledge to nonexpert audiences and build ecological literacy. The use of analogy and narrative by scientists are prominent techniques. In this article, we consider how these two modes of language-based reasoning extend into ordinary conversational language use by the public, specifically when articulating everyday understanding and experiences of biodiversity. Drawing on a process of public engagement in a UK woodland environment, a typological framework based on principles of analogical and narrative reasoning is developed to characterize the precise character of processes of everyday biodiversity sense making. The implications of the framework are discussed in the context of future biodiversity research, particularly its participatory and educational dimensions.

Nature-based social prescribing programmes: opportunities, challenges, and facilitators for implementation.

BACKGROUND: Evidence on the health benefits of spending time in nature has highlighted the importance of provision of blue and green spaces where people live. The potential for health benefits offered by nature exposure, however, extends beyond health promotion to health treatment. Social prescribing links people with health or social care needs to community-based, non-clinical health and social care interventions to improve health and wellbeing. Nature-based social prescribing (NBSP) is a variant that uses the health-promoting benefits of activities carried out in natural environments, such as gardening and walking. Much current NBSP practice has been developed in the UK, and there is increasing global interest in its implementation. This requires interventions to be adapted for different contexts, considering the needs of populations and the structure of healthcare systems. METHODS: This paper presents results from an expert group participatory workshop involving 29 practitioners, researchers, and policymakers from the UK and Germany's health and environmental sectors. Using the UK and Germany, two countries with different healthcare systems and in different developmental stages of NBSP practice, as case studies, we analysed opportunities, challenges, and facilitators for the development and implementation of NBSP. RESULTS: We identified five overarching themes for developing, implementing, and evaluating NBSP: Capacity Building; Accessibility and Acceptability; Networks and Collaborations; Standardised Implementation and Evaluation; and Sustainability. We also discuss key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for each overarching theme to understand how they could be developed to support NBSP implementation. CONCLUSIONS: NBSP could offer significant public health benefits using available blue and green spaces. We offer guidance on how NBSP implementation, from wider policy support to the design and evaluation of individual programmes, could be adapted to different contexts. This research could help inform the development and evaluation of NBSP programmes to support planetary health from local and global scales.

Milder, wilder, drier: Understanding preferences for urban nature-based solutions in China.

Nature-based solutions have gained recognition for their potential to address urban environmental challenges, particularly in rapidly urbanising countries such as China. However, financial and spatial constraints hinder their widespread adoption. Here we explore urban residents' preferences for nature-based solutions targeting stormwater management, urban heat island reduction, and biodiversity support through monetary, time, and space contributions. We carried out three choice experiment surveys with 1536 Chinese respondents, employing three payment vehicles: willingness to pay (WTP), willingness to contribute time (WTCT), and a novel metric, willingness to contribute space (WTCS). The WTCS metric assesses individuals' willingness to voluntarily convert sealed surfaces on private land into greenspace. We found strong preferences for temperature and flooding reduction across all payment vehicles, reflecting substantial challenges of urban heat islands and flooding in China. Additionally, we reveal a preference for moderate greenspace management intensity, highlighting the potential for biodiversity benefits through reduced management intensities. The introduction of the WTCS payment vehicle expands the methodological toolkit for choice experiments and offers a novel approach to assess citizen support for nature-based solutions. These findings have practical implications for designing effective nature-based solutions programs to address urban environmental challenges and meet the preferences of urban residents in China and beyond.

Meeting sustainable development goals via robotics and autonomous systems.

Robotics and autonomous systems are reshaping the world, changing healthcare, food production and biodiversity management. While they will play a fundamental role in delivering the UN Sustainable Development Goals, associated opportunities and threats are yet to be considered systematically. We report on a horizon scan evaluating robotics and autonomous systems impact on all Sustainable Development Goals, involving 102 experts from around the world. Robotics and autonomous systems are likely to transform how the Sustainable Development Goals are achieved, through replacing and supporting human activities, fostering innovation, enhancing remote access and improving monitoring. Emerging threats relate to reinforcing inequalities, exacerbating environmental change, diverting resources from tried-and-tested solutions and reducing freedom and privacy through inadequate governance. Although predicting future impacts of robotics and autonomous systems on the Sustainable Development Goals is difficult, thoroughly examining technological developments early is essential to prevent unintended detrimental consequences. Additionally, robotics and autonomous systems should be considered explicitly when developing future iterations of the Sustainable Development Goals to avoid reversing progress or exacerbating inequalities.

Why cultural ecosystem services matter most: Exploring the pathways linking greenspaces and mental health in a low-income country.

Exposure to urban greenspaces promotes a variety of mental health benefits. However, much of the evidence for these benefits is biased towards high-income countries. In contrast, urban areas in low-income settings that have the highest rates of urbanisation remain understudied. Given the increasing burden of mental ill-health associated with urbanisation in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), there is a clear need to better understand the role urban greenspaces play in mitigating mental ill-health. Here we use a novel combination of research methods (participatory video, focus groups and the Q-methodology) in a rapidly urbanising low-income city (Kathmandu, Nepal). We explored residents' perspectives on ecosystem services, and the pathways linking greenspaces to mental health. Residents indicated that greenspaces are linked to mental health through pathways such as reducing harm (exposure to air pollution and heat), restoring capacities (attention restoration and stress reduction), building capacities (encouraging physical activity, fostering social cohesion and child development) and causing harm (human - wildlife conflicts, gender discrimination). It is likely that a combination of such pathways triggers mental health impacts. Of all ecosystem services, cultural services such as providing settings for recreation, or intellectual or mental interactions with greenspaces involving analytical, symbolic, spiritual or religious activities were most preferred. Our findings emphasise that cultural ecosystem services provide a fundamental basic need which all people, including low-income residents, depend on to participate meaningfully in society. Urban greenspaces therefore play a pivotal role in reducing the burden of mental ill-health for low-income residents in LMICs. Greater efforts to increase the quantity, quality and accessibility of greenspaces may help to address current health inequalities in LMICs.

The influence of human values on attitudes and behaviours towards forest conservation.

Human attitudes and behaviours have been linked to the degradation of global biodiversity, particularly forest ecosystems. Indeed, effective conservation actions require that the attitudes and behaviours of affected individuals and communities are taken into account. While several studies have examined how human attitudes and behaviours affect conservation, it is still unclear which, and how, human value orientations influence conservation attitudes and behaviour. This is critical because attitudes and behaviours are underpinned by the complex concept of human values. Thus, effective management and conservation of environmental resources requires an in-depth knowledge and understanding of these values, and how they affect attitudinal and behavioural preferences towards the natural environment and their protection. Here we review the human value orientations influencing people's attitudes and behaviours towards forest conservation, and discuss how conservation projects can be more successful by aligning their goals and operations to people's values. To do this, we carried out a scoping review, using the sub-Saharan Africa region as a case study, and followed the PRISMA-ScR systematic review guidelines. A narrative synthesis was adopted for data analysis. We identified different value types that fall within three broad human value orientation domains influencing forest conservation attitudes and behaviours. Anthropocentric and relational value orientations emerged as most dominant, with both positive and negative influences on a number of forest conservation attitudes and behaviours, albeit with more evidence for positive influence. The positive attitudes and behaviours were linked to utilitarian motivations and cultural beliefs and include rural support for conservation, compliance to forest rules, sustainable forest use, and participation in forest management. The values linked to dependence on forest resources, low benefits from conservation, and conservation costs, tend to trigger negative conservation attitudes and behaviours. To effectively achieve forest conservation goals, environmental managers, conservationists, and decision-makers should understand the extent and directional influence of value orientations on conservation attitudes and behaviours.

Exploring uncharted territory: Do urban greenspaces support mental health in low- and middle-income countries?

Exposure to urban greenspaces promotes an array of mental health benefits. Understanding these benefits is of paramount importance, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where cities are expanding at an unprecedented rate. However, the existing evidence-base for the health benefits of greenspaces has a strong bias towards high-income countries. Here we systematically assess the emerging evidence regarding the mental health benefits provided by urban greenspaces in LMICs. We carried out a scoping review to assess the extent, type and quality of evidence investigating the relationship between greenspaces and mental health in LMICs. We systematically searched the literature databases Web of Science, Medline, Embase and CAB Abstracts using key terms related to greenspaces and mental health in LMICs. We analysed the resulting studies using a narrative synthesis approach, taking into account study quality, to assess the overall effects on mental health. 36 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the narrative synthesis. Studies were heterogeneous in design, study population, greenspace and mental health assessment. While more than 90% of LMICs remain unstudied, we found that eight out of ten studies using validated mental health screening tools detected positive associations between greenspaces and one or more mental health outcomes. These studies mostly took place in upper-middle-income countries. However, there still is a lack of evidence from regions with the highest levels of urbanisation, and only four studies assessed lower-middle and low-income countries. Furthermore, the analysis of mediating and moderating factors indicates that the relationship between greenspaces and mental health in LMICs is context dependent and needs to be assessed in relation to locally relevant environmental and cultural settings. Based on the evidence reviewed here, exposure to urban greenspaces can support multiple mental health outcomes in upper-middle-income countries. However, we still know little about poorer, rapidly urbanising countries. Our findings highlight the need for high-quality, context specific research in those urban areas with the highest levels of urbanisation, and the need to address specific challenges regarding mediating and moderating factors. Future studies should combine robust ecological assessments of greenspaces with validated mental health screening tools.