Adrian Martin

Land systems are the nexus of many global sustainability and justice challenges. Here we present eight guiding principles (P1–8) for improved land system policies following the heuristic stages of a policy cycle. The principles are as follows: embrace recognitional justice (P1), be politically strategic (P2), consider multiple policy goals (P3), address systemic issues (P4), take an integrative scope (P5), foster co-development (P6), adopt clear and monitorable targets (P7) and integrate diagnostic and adaptive capacities (P8). We then explore how well policies align with these principles in two globally relevant cases (land-based climate mitigation and biodiversity-friendly agriculture). In both cases, we find that when policies align poorly with the principles at the agenda-setting stage, there is further misalignment at the policy formulation stage. In the instances when recognitional justice is embraced at the onset, policies subsequently integrate more diverse goals and co-development, but they insufficiently consider political strategy and struggle to handle system complexity. Nonetheless, we identify promising policy mixes that provide benefits to multiple actors, integrate multiple goals, take an integrative scope and have strong monitoring and adaptation, aligning well with multiple principles. Further investigation of these principles could reveal promising policy pathways for land systems.

The prioritization of market over nonmarket values of nature is a key driver of the global biodiversity crisis. Recognizing nature’s diverse values in decisions is a fundamental lever for sustainability transformation. While economic valuation of nature has a long history, it has struggled to recognize the full suite of nature’s values, particularly the broad, relational, intrinsic, and shared values reflecting the complexity of human–nature relationships. We explore opportunities to expand the consideration of values within the economics of biodiversity by reviewing conventional and heterodox economic approaches. We argue that integrating pluralistic values requires a relational biodiversity economics that transcends people–nature dualism and seeks the flourishing of life. We synthesize foundations for such a paradigm in relation to worldviews, values, value indicators, and life frames. Our perspective transcends the dominant economic framing of nature as a passive, largely substitutable asset, to also consider nature as place, self, and harboring agency. This helps to overcome the limitations of conventional economic assumptions, better reflects peoples’ lived experiences, and supports transformations toward more just and sustainable futures.

Driven by international policy agendas to restore landscapes, large-scale land-use changes are expected in rural areas, with significant implications for landscape characteristics, land-uses, livelihoods, economies and cultures. It is increasingly recognised that the long-term success of restoration initiatives requires integrating social considerations, yet uncertainties remain over the pathways for achieving this. This paper explores the basis for- and barriers to- a just and sustainable vision of the landscape through a case study of the Affric-Kintail area in the Scottish Highlands, a context in which environmental policy agendas and natural capital investments are driving rural landscape change. Drawing from multidimensional, empirical environmental justice, this paper investigates the diverse justice claims voiced by rural communities. The research highlights a spectrum of justice concerns tied to diverse, contested meanings and practices of just transitions, where we distinguish between socio-technical and transformative approaches to just transition. As a result, our case study points to fundamental structural and socio-economic barriers to realising just transformation in rural Scotland, rooted in vast inequalities in power, wealth and landownership, and a depth of justice concerns around rural landscape transformations which have so far been left aside by restoration agendas and just transition policy discourses.

Drawing on 662 studies from 102 countries, we present a systematic review of published empirical studies about site-level biodiversity conservation initiated between 1970 and 2019. Within this sample, we find that knowledge production about the Global South is largely produced by researchers in the Global North, implying a neocolonial power dynamic. We also find evidence of bias in reported ecological outcomes linked to lack of independence in scientific studies, serving to uphold narratives about who should lead conservation. We explore relationships in the sample studies between conservation initiative types, the extent of Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ influence in governance, and reported social and ecological outcomes. Findings reveal positive ecological and social outcomes are strongly associated with higher levels of influence of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and their institutions, implying equity in conservation practice should be advanced not only for moral reasons, but because it can enhance conservation effectiveness.

Modern environmental thought has always involved normative claims about the values needed for sustainability. This has often played out in debates between proponents of anthropocentric and ecocentric ways of valuing nature. More recently, there has been a flourishing of interest in relational and pluricentric ways of valuing nature, coinciding with a “turn to values” in the sustainability literature. In this paper we explore the meaning and use of the term “sustainability-aligned values.” Following the 2022 IPBES Values Assessment we consider these as values that are crucial for shaping decisions that will help bring about sustainability. Our characterization of sustainably-aligned values assumes inherent pluralism because of diverse interpretations of sustainability and of pathways toward it. Nevertheless, a review of three bodies of literature suggests that there is considerable agreement about the kinds of values that align with sustainability. In particular, the nurturing of certain relational values is now widely seen as supportive of sustainability, including values regarding what matters in human interactions with nature (such as stewardship), and values regarding relationships between humans (such as collectivism). We proceed to pose critical questions about the proposition that certain values support sustainability. We ask whether this emerging body of thought is consistent with pluralist requirements to foster values diversity, whether an agenda to nurture values aligned with sustainability is actionable, and how mobilizing sustainability-aligned values entails addressing power imbalances.

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are incentive-based instruments that provide conditional economic incentives for natural resources management. Research has shown that when economic incentives are parachuted into rural communities, participation and benefits are collectively negotiated and shared. However, we know little about how benefit-sharing evolves over time in community-based PES. To address this gap, we examine distributional justice in four communities of the state of Chiapas, Mexico, which participate in a PES programme, and we assess how local justice principles compare with the programme’s goals. Our analysis reveals patterns of both continuity and change in how communities share PES benefits, which reflect a suite of contradictory justice principles, including entitlement, merit, need, and equality. The studied communities distribute PES benefits by providing differentiated compensation to diverse groups of landholders via private cash payments, whilst also attending non-landed community members through public infrastructure investments. We show that benefit-sharing is strongly influenced by pre-existing land tenure features and associated norms, which in the study area include three different types of individual and common-property. Yet, we also show that communities continuously adjust benefit-sharing arrangements to navigate distributional challenges emerging from programme engagement. Overall, we provide novel insights on the evolution, diversity, and complexity of distributive justice in community-based PES and we advocate for a context-sensitive, nuanced, and dynamic account of justice in incentive-based conservation.

Attempts to link human development and biodiversity conservation goals remain a constant feature of policy and practice related to protected areas (PAs). Underlying these approaches are narratives that simplify assumptions, shaping how interventions are designed and implemented. We examine evidence for five key narratives: 1) conservation is pro-poor; 2) poverty reduction benefits conservation; 3) compensation neutralises costs of conservation; 4) local participation is good for conservation; 5) secure tenure rights for local communities support effective conservation. Through a mixed-method synthesis combining a review of 100 peer-reviewed papers and 25 expert interviews, we examined if and how each narrative is supported or countered by the evidence. The first three narratives are particularly problematic. PAs can reduce material poverty, but exclusion brings substantial local costs to wellbeing, often felt by the poorest. Poverty reduction will not inevitably deliver on conservation goals and trade-offs are common. Compensation (for damage due to human wildlife conflict, or for opportunity costs), is rarely sufficient or commensurate with costs to wellbeing and experienced injustices. There is more support for narratives 4 and 5 on participation and secure tenure rights, highlighting the importance of redistributing power towards Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in successful conservation. In light of the proposed expansion of PAs under the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, we outline implications of our review for the enhancement and implementation of global targets in order to proactively integrate social equity into conservation and the accountability of conservation actors.

Global carbon emissions continue to rise, 1 rates of global biodiversity loss continue to increase, 2 and social and economic inequalities continue to widen. 3 Signi­ficant global social movements ...