Decline in Honeybees and Its Consequences for Beekeepers and Crop Pollination in Western Nepal.

In understudied regions of the world, beekeeper records can provide valuable insights into changes in pollinator population trends. We conducted a questionnaire survey of 116 beekeepers in a mountainous area of Western Nepal, where the native honeybee Apis cerana cerana is kept as a managed bee. We complemented the survey with field data on insect-crop visitation, a household income survey, and an interview with a local lead beekeeper. In total, 76% of beekeepers reported declines in honeybees, while 86% and 78% reported declines in honey yield and number of beehives, respectively. Honey yield per hive fell by 50% between 2012 and 2022, whilst the number of occupied hives decreased by 44%. Beekeepers ranked climate change and declining flower abundance as the most important drivers of the decline. This raises concern for the future food and economic security of this region, where honey sales contribute to 16% of total household income, and where Apis cerana cerana plays a major role in crop pollination, contributing more than 50% of all flower visits to apple, cucumber, and pumpkin. To mitigate further declines, we promote native habitat and wildflower preservation, and using well-insulated log hives to buffer bees against the increasingly extreme temperature fluctuations.

Quantifying the production of plant pollen at the farm scale.

Plant pollen is rich in protein, sterols and lipids, providing crucial nutrition for many pollinators. However, we know very little about the quantity, quality and timing of pollen availability in real landscapes, limiting our ability to improve food supply for pollinators. We quantify the floral longevity and pollen production of a whole plant community for the first time, enabling us to calculate daily pollen availability. We combine these data with floral abundance and nectar measures from UK farmland to quantify pollen and nectar production at the landscape scale throughout the year. Pollen and nectar production were significantly correlated at the floral unit, and landscape level. The species providing the highest quantity of pollen on farmland were Salix spp. (38%), Filipendula ulmaria (14%), Rubus fruticosus (10%) and Taraxacum officinale (9%). Hedgerows were the most pollen-rich habitats, but permanent pasture provided the majority of pollen at the landscape scale, because of its large area. Pollen and nectar were closely associated in their phenology, with both peaking in late April, before declining steeply in June and remaining low throughout the year. Our data provide a starting point for including pollen in floral resource assessments and ensuring the nutritional requirements of pollinators are met in farmland landscapes.

A balancing act: Principles, criteria and indicator framework to operationalize social-ecological resilience of forests.

Against a background of intensifying climate-induced disturbances, the need to enhance the resilience of forests and forest management is gaining urgency. In forest management, multiple trade-offs exist between different demands as well as across and within temporal and spatial scales. However, methods to assess resilience that consider these trade-offs are presently lacking. Here we propose a hierarchical framework of principles, criteria, and indicators to assess the resilience of a social-ecological system by focusing on the mechanisms behind resilience. This hierarchical framework balances trade-offs between mechanisms, different parts of the social-ecological system, ecosystem services, and spatial as well as temporal scales. The framework was developed to be used in a participatory manner in forest management planning. It accounts for the major parts of the forest-related social-ecological system and considers the multiple trade-offs involved. We demonstrate the utility of the framework by applying it to a landscape dominated by Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) in Central Europe, managed for three different management goals. The framework highlights how forest resilience varies with the pursued management goals and related management strategies. The framework is flexible and can be applied to various forest management contexts as part of a participatory process with stakeholders. It thus is an important step towards operationalizing social-ecological resilience in forest management systems.

Children in All Policies (CAP) 2030 Citizen Science for Climate Change Resilience: a cross-sectional pilot study engaging adolescents to study climate hazards, biodiversity and nutrition in rural Nepal.

Background: Young people will suffer most from climate change yet are rarely engaged in dialogue about it. Citizen science offers a method for collecting policy-relevant data, whilst promoting awareness and capacity building. We tested the feasibility and acceptability of engaging Nepalese adolescents in climate change and health-related citizen science. Methods: We purposively selected 33 adolescents from two secondary schools in one remote and one relatively accessible district of Nepal. We contextualised existing apps and developed bespoke apps to survey climate hazards, waste and water management, local biodiversity, nutrition and sociodemographic information. We analysed and presented quantitative data using a descriptive analysis. We captured perceptions and learnings via focus group discussions and analysed qualitative data using thematic analysis. We shared findings with data collectors using tables, graphs, data dashboards and maps. Results: Adolescents collected 1667 biodiversity observations, identified 72 climate-change related hazards, and mapped 644 geolocations. They recorded 286 weights, 248 heights and 340 dietary recalls. Adolescents enjoyed learning how to collect the data and interpret the findings and gained an appreciation of local biodiversity which engendered 'environmental stewardship'. Data highlighted the prevalence of failing crops and landslides, revealed both under- and over-nutrition and demonstrated that children consume more junk foods than adults. Adolescents learnt about the impacts of climate change and the importance of eating a diverse diet of locally grown foods. A lack of a pre-established sampling frame, multiple records of the same observation and spurious nutrition data entries by unsupervised adolescents limited data quality and utility. Lack of internet access severely impacted feasibility, especially of apps which provide online feedback. Conclusions: Citizen science was largely acceptable, educational and empowering for adolescents, although not always feasible without internet access. Future projects could improve data quality and integrate youth leadership training to enable climate-change advocacy with local leaders.

Exploring connections between pollinator health and human health.

Despite recent advances in understanding the role of biodiversity in ecosystem-service provision, the links between the health of ecosystem-service providers and human health remain more uncertain. During the past decade, an increasing number of studies have argued for the positive impacts of healthy pollinator communities (defined as functionally and genetically diverse species assemblages that are sustained over time) on human health. Here, we begin with a systematic review of these impacts, finding only two studies that concomitantly quantified aspects of pollinator health and human health. Next, we identify relevant research relating to four pathways linking pollinator health and human health: nutrition, medicine provisioning, mental health and environmental quality. These benefits are obtained through improved pollination of nutritious crops and an estimated approximately 28 000 animal-pollinated medicinal plants; the provisioning of pollinator-derived products such as honey; the maintenance of green spaces and biocultural landscapes that improve mental health; and cleaner air, water and food resulting from pollinator-centred initiatives to reduce agrochemical use. We suggest that pollinator diversity could be a proxy for the benefits that landscapes provide to human health. This article is part of the theme issue 'Natural processes influencing pollinator health: from chemistry to landscapes'.

Forest policy and management approaches for carbon dioxide removal.

Forests increasingly will be used for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) as a natural climate solution, and the implementation of forest-based CDR presents a complex public policy challenge. In this paper, our goal is to review a range of policy tools in place to support use of forests for CDR and demonstrate how concepts from the policy design literature can inform our understanding of this domain. We explore how the utilization of different policy tools shapes our ability to use forests to mitigate and adapt to climate change and consider the challenges of policy mixes and integration, taking a close look at three areas of international forest policy, including the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) and voluntary carbon offset markets. As it is our expertise, we then examine in detail the case of the USA as a country that lacks aggressive implementation of national climate policies but has potential to increase CDR through reforestation and existing forest management on both public and private land. For forest-based CDR to succeed, a wide array of policy tools will have to be implemented in a variety of contexts with an eye towards overcoming the challenges of policy design with regard to uncertainty in policy outcomes, policy coherence around managing forests for carbon simultaneously with other goals and integration across governance contexts and levels.