Tyndall Centre Publications

@article{014e86f8686e4505a1cc2e412c5362f5,

title = {Towards a transformative approach to just rural transitions: Landscape restoration in the Scottish highlands},

author = {David Brown and Adrian Martin and Janet A. Fisher and Mathilde Gingembre},

doi = {10.1177/25148486251367163},

issn = {2514-8486},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-12-01},

journal = {Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space},

volume = {8},

number = {6},

pages = {1839–1865},

publisher = {Sage Publications},

abstract = {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.},

note = {Data availability statement: The data that has been used is confidential. Funding information: This work was supported by the JPI Climate- SOLSTICE programme (SOLSTICE Consortium Agreement, 2020-12-1) and the UK Natural Environment Research Council Landscape Decisions Fellowship (grant no. NE/V007904/1).},

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@article{f61943b087a04392a0afcf0f39d0d654,

title = {Male migration and the transformation of gendered agriculture work: A comparative exploration of heterogeneity across selected Indian states},

author = {Rengalakshmi Raj and Padmaja Ravula and Pratheepa Kumari and Arundhita Bhanjdeo and Reetu Sogani and Nitya Rao},

doi = {10.1080/0966369X.2025.2468178},

issn = {0966-369X},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-12-01},

journal = {Gender, Place & Culture},

volume = {32},

number = {12},

pages = {1757–1785},

publisher = {Routledge},

abstract = {Male migration among agriculture-dependent households has emerged as an important livelihood strategy for coping with poverty, food insecurity, climate change, and several other risks and shocks in the Global South. Emerging research on the impacts of male migration on women’s agency, especially in agricultural production and decision-making, paints a one-size-fits-all picture. This paper, through a comparative, qualitative analysis of the implications of male out-migration on gender roles and responsibilities in agriculture across four different agroecologies in India – forested, mountainous, semi-arid, and coastal – highlights the heterogeneity in women’s experiences of male migration in the Indian context. While the nature of migration and the amount and regularity of remittances shape the increase or decline in women’s work and responsibilities, factors like age, caste, class, life stage, and context also play a significant role. We note that current scholarship has given too much importance to the narrative on remittance-driven livelihoods at the cost of multiple factors that shape women’s roles, experiences, and strategic choices in migrant-sending communities. What appears critical for transformative change is state policy that facilitates and enables collective action, central to overcoming the patriarchal constraints women encounter, especially as they shift from labouring to managerial roles in farming.},

note = {Funding information: Funding support for this study was provided by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Grant Ref: BB/P027970/1 under the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) award to Transforming India’s Green Revolution by Research and Empowerment for Sustainable food Supplies (TIGR2ESS).},

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@article{c46f7fc153c349c6bfb80e6fae315038,

title = {Gender, intersectionality and climate smart agriculture in South Asia: A review},

author = {Nitya Rao and Reema Sathe and Natasha Grist},

doi = {10.1371/journal.pclm.0000482},

issn = {2767-3200},

year  = {2025},

date = {2025-02-25},

journal = {PLoS Climate},

volume = {4},

number = {2},

publisher = {Public Library of Science},

abstract = {Food systems-based livelihoods are precarious for many of the most vulnerable and marginalised people, with climate variability and change posing a grave threat to food security. South Asia is expected to be one of the three most concentrated regions of hunger in the world by 2050. Whilst highly diverse in both socio-cultural systems and ecosystems, the majority depend on smallholder farming throughout the region. Transforming both agriculture and food systems is therefore critical to sustainable and equitable development and achieving food security. Yet the critical role of gender and intersectionality is still inadequately woven into this future. In this paper, we find little evidence of robust intersectional contextualisation in design and analysis of Climate Smart Agriculture practices. We examine existing evidence to illustrate how a nuanced understanding of gender relations and intersectionality can inform a climate smart approach to landscape and uses of the land to ensure food and nutritional security in the face of climate change. Gender segregated data analysis, which helps recognize the most vulnerable, is an essential underpinning to this transformed approach to policymaking and project design. Direct support is required, alongside structured interventions beyond the farm gate in relation to access to credit and finance, leadership and capacity building and an equity focussed transformation of national and regional policy frameworks on climate impacts. Focusing on literature from India, supplemented with wider South Asian research, we find that despite growing evidence on the relationship between gender, agriculture and climate change, an intersectional analysis of climate smart agriculture, including class, and caste and other social identities, remains limited.},

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@article{65b7ddc499854e62b94ce7891a6205c0,

title = {Innovation in coastal governance: management and expectations of the UK’s first sandscaping scheme},

author = {Irene Lorenzoni and Sophie A. Day and Martin Mahony and Trevor J. Tolhurst and Rosalind H. Bark},

doi = {10.1007/s10113-024-02248-x},

issn = {1436-3798},

year  = {2024},

date = {2024-09-01},

journal = {Regional Environmental Change},

volume = {24},

number = {3},

publisher = {Springer},

abstract = {Many coastal places around the UK face change, with impacts on communities, livelihoods, and landscapes. A tidal surge in 2013 caused significant erosion and flooding on the east coast of England (UK). This was the catalyst for the innovative Bacton to Walcott Coastal Management Scheme, also known as the Sandscaping Scheme, implemented in summer 2019. It is a one-off, large-scale beach nourishment scheme with a design prediction of 15–20 years functional life, the first of its kind in the UK and worldwide outside of the Netherlands. Through stakeholder interviews and a household questionnaire survey, this paper examines the institutional and political challenges, expectations, and hopes associated with this Scheme just before its implementation. The findings indicate that a combination of factors enabled technical and institutional experimentation and innovation at this location: critical erosion risk at a site of strategic infrastructure adjacent to two highly vulnerable villages, extensive stakeholder collaboration across scales, resolute leadership, and recognition of co-benefits. Although most interviewees and local residents foresaw significant benefit from the Scheme—not least respite from the deep anxiety caused by the threat of flooding and erosion risk—tensions were expressed around uncertainty beyond the Scheme’s lifetime and the need to start effective conversations about future adaptation options for the area. This study provides reflections for similar nature-based coastal management schemes elsewhere. It highlights the fundamental challenges facing the governance of natural and social coastal systems for adapting to current and future coastal change and the importance of articulating local and sometimes intangible understandings and expectations of adaptive coastal management interventions.},

note = {Funding information: This study was funded and supported by the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia.},

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@article{6165aab3ce8d4cedb082632f01664fb5,

title = {What does a just transition mean for urban biodiversity? Insights from three cities globally},

author = {Leslie Mabon and Antonia Layard and Laura De Vito and Roger Few and Sophia Hatzisavvidou and Odirilwe Selomane and Adam Marshall and Gilles Marciniak and Hannah Moersberger},

doi = {10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104069},

issn = {0016-7185},

year  = {2024},

date = {2024-08-01},

journal = {Geoforum},

volume = {154},

publisher = {Elsevier},

abstract = {Just transitions – responses to environmental change that minimise negative impacts on the most affected people and places, while ensuring nobody is left behind – are gaining scholarly and policy significance in areas beyond their original focus on carbon-intensive jobs and sectors. Yet attention to what a just transition means for biodiversity, as another aspect of the global environmental crisis, remains limited. Given the critical role that biodiversity plays in supporting livelihoods and wellbeing, this is a notable gap. This paper assesses what a just transition means for biodiversity, focusing on urban environments as the spaces in which many people encounter biodiversity globally. We undertake interview research across three case study cities representing different geopolitical and environmental contexts: Bristol (UK); Yubari (Japan); and Cape Town (South Africa) and ask two questions: what does biodiversity tell us about the concept of just transitions in the lived environment; and what are the consequences of considering just transitions in the context of biodiversity in the lived urban environment? Based on our findings, we set out six principles for a just transition in relation to urban biodiversity, as areas for further empirical enquiry: a shared sense of what a just transition and biodiversity mean in the local context; diverse social and ecological knowledge systems informing decision-making; integration and cohesion across policies; inclusive, meaningful and early engagement; supporting communities during and after implementation; and measures for assessing the effectiveness of outcomes from an ecological and a social perspective.},

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@article{6639096e619c4f879cffb7e8d7a70e28,

title = {Everyday mobility and changing livelihood trajectories: Implications for vulnerability and adaptation in dryland regions},

author = {Mark G. L. Tebboth and Chandni Singh and Dian Spear and Adelina M. Mensah and Prince Ansah},

doi = {10.5751/ES-13626-280136},

issn = {1708-3087},

year  = {2023},

date = {2023-03-08},

journal = {Ecology and Society},

volume = {28},

number = {1},

publisher = {The Resilience Alliance},

abstract = {Dryland regions are highly dynamic environments in which multiple pressures intersect, threatening livelihood security. Mobility is an integral feature in these environments and represents a key risk management strategy for people to respond to frequent livelihood shocks and stresses. Global environmental change scholarship has tended to articulate spatial and temporal change inadequately, portraying populations in a way that belies their socially differentiated and inherently mobile livelihoods. We explored the role of mobility as an ongoing, "everyday" adaptive response to changing environmental, economic, and social conditions. We draw on 21 Life History (LH) interviews to explore the drivers and outcomes of people's mobility behavior in drylands of Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, and India. We present the adaptation option space (AOS) as a novel theoretical development to explore livelihood trajectories. Within our cases, we found that mobility was ubiquitous and facilitated changes to and exchanges within people's risk profiles in three main ways: novelty (risks gained or lost), modification (risks attenuated or accentuated), and no change. Temporal analysis showed three broad trajectories in people's lives set within broader structural constraints: upward, downward, and stable, depending on people's abilities to manage their AOS. The analysis confirmed that the AOS was a useful heuristic to understand how people exert agency to respond to an array of converging risks while negotiating broader drivers of change. Moreover, the data demonstrated how compounding shocks had negative impacts on people, highlighting the value of temporally-sensitive approaches.},

note = {ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: This work was carried out with financial support from the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada. The views expressed herein are those of the creators and do not necessarily represent those of the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, IDRC or its Board of Governors. The paper also benefitted from funding through the South African Department of Science and Technology. We would like our respondents across Ghana, India, Kenya, and Namibia for sharing their life stories with us, Catherine Locke for ideas and comments during initial stages of the paper, and Adaptation Workshop organizers at the University of Michigan, and participants who were influential in shaping later drafts of the paper. DATA AVAILABILITY: Data/code sharing is not applicable to this article because no data/code were analyzed in this study that can be shared without breaching confidentiality and anonymity agreements of the interviewees.},

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@article{ecf70b7003f843d19e76ba659a581005,

title = {Who benefits from the agrarian transition under violent conflict? Evidence from Myanmar},

author = {Tim Forsyth and Oliver Springate-Baginski},

doi = {10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.09.003},

issn = {0743-0167},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-10-01},

journal = {Journal of Rural Studies},

volume = {95},

pages = {160–172},

publisher = {Elsevier},

abstract = {Agricultural commercialization and livelihood diversification have been proposed as ways to bring economic prosperity to rural zones after long-term violent conflict. Critics, however, argue that these market-based interventions exacerbate, rather than resolve, older social divisions, and that commercialization needs to be seen as part of agrarian transition processes. This paper contributes to the analysis of livelihoods-based interventions under violent conflict by presenting research from Kachin State, Myanmar. Drawing on 276 household surveys plus interviews, the paper argues that agrarian transition has only occurred within larger landholders who have been able to increase farm size by expanding commercial agriculture onto land historically used for shifting cultivation. Smallholders, however, have been unable to expand agriculture in this way, partly because of the reallocation of agricultural land to favored investors, including Chinese banana plantations. Meanwhile, access to non-agricultural livelihoods is largely restricted to laboring in Burmese army-controlled jade mines, or to traders arriving from outside the region. These findings indicate a different outcome to research elsewhere in Myanmar that suggests agrarian transition processes can benefit landless people; and instead supports evidence elsewhere in Asia that the agrarian transition can become “truncated” if smallholders do not participate. Making the agrarian transition inclusive requires greater attention to the ethnic, and other social barriers for participation by smallholders and rural landless, rather than facilitating commercialization alone.},

note = {Funding Information: The research was funded by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE), project: MK29 Working together for a better Kachin landscape. Acknowledgements: The authors wish to thank the Shalom (Nyein) Foundation (Myitkyina) and Friends of Wildlife (Yangon) for collaboration; Julia Fogerite and Kevin Woods for help in the early part of research; and three anonymous referees for valuable comments.},

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@article{4e74a0805ed64cf59d64e838c7addcff,

title = {Cultivating sustainable and healthy cities: A systematic literature review of the outcomes of urban and peri-urban agriculture},

author = {Nitya Rao and Sheetal Patil and Chandni Singh and Parama Roy and Charles Pryor and Prathigna Poonacha and Mariam Genes},

doi = {10.1016/j.scs.2022.104063},

issn = {2210-6707},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-10-01},

journal = {Sustainable Cities and Society},

volume = {85},

publisher = {Elsevier},

abstract = {Despite considerable interest in urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) in recent decades, its contributions to urban sustainability and human wellbeing remain contested. This systematic literature review examines the geographical landscape of the peer-reviewed literature on UPA and assesses its reported outcomes on sustainability and wellbeing. Following systematic review protocols, we undertook a two-step literature screening and quality assessment process. From a total of 4,029 articles, based inclusion-exclusion criteria, we filtered 320 articles for quantitative and 86 for qualitative assessment. Quantitative analysis confirmed an exponential increase in literature on UPA since 2015 and a regional bias towards the Global North. The qualitative analysis identified six thematic outcomes of UPA under three sustainability pillars - environmental sustainability; material well-being; labour and livelihoods; land tenure and urban planning; and food and nutritional security as part of economic sustainability; and subjective and relational wellbeing as well as gender and social differentiation as elements of social sustainability. Environmental sustainability was most discussed, followed by subjective wellbeing and food and nutritional security. Gender and social differentiation issues were least represented in the papers. There remain knowledge gaps around how urban policy and planning can recognise, leverage, and scale up the sustainability and wellbeing co-benefits of UPA.},

note = {Acknowledgements: Authors acknowledge support from Holly Ruffhead for initial query-based searches of literature from three large publication databases. Authors acknowledge financial support from British Academy's “Urban Infrastructures of Well-Being” programme, under the UK Government's Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) for the research project titled ‘Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture as Green Infrastructure: Implication on wellbeing and sustainability in the Global South’.},

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@article{a3ac8f3e5e4c4204a71ed3c41f7d3126,

title = {Prioritising wellbeing and resilience to Build Back Better: insights from a Dominican small-scale fishing community},

author = {Johanna Forster and Clare Shelton and Carole S. White and Agathe Dupeyron and Alena Mizinova},

doi = {10.1111/disa.12541},

issn = {0361-3666},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-07-01},

journal = {Disasters},

volume = {46},

number = {S1},

pages = {S51–S77},

publisher = {Wiley},

abstract = {Climate change is increasing the severity of extreme weather events, particularly hurricanes, presenting a significant challenge to Caribbean coastal communities. In the aftermath of a major disaster, government interventions typically prioritise infrastructure, assets, and the economy through rebuilding roads, reviving economic sectors, and providing financial compensation. This is driven by a focus on macro-level quantitative indicators rather than by local, multidimensional subjective and relational factors, closer to lived experiences and livelihoods. Using frameworks outlining social well-being and agency, this paper explores strategies used by a fisheries-dependent community in Dominica to recover from Hurricane Maria in 2017 and pursue well-being. The findings highlight the importance of multidimensional well-being, particularly relational and subjective dimensions, including existing social networks, and personal relationships critical for recovery after Maria. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates how recovery initiatives that concentrate solely on material well-being, such as employment, can undermine agency in the capacity of a community to recover and build resilience.},

note = {Supplement: ‘Building back better’? Lessons from disaster recovery in the Caribbean. Published in honour of Emeritus Professor David Barker Funding Information: The work was funded by a Global Challenges Research Fund (quality‐related) grant awarded by the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom (code: DEV31GFJF).},

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@article{5dc6c446afc346bb964660e3cfbbb341,

title = {Developing socio-ecological scenarios: A participatory process for engaging stakeholders},

author = {Andrew Allan and Emily J. Barbour and Robert Nicholls and Craig W. Hutton and Michelle Lim and Mashfiqus Salehin and Md Munsur Rahman},

doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150512},

issn = {0048-9697},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-02-10},

journal = {Science of the Total Environment},

volume = {807},

number = {1},

publisher = {Elsevier},

abstract = {Deltas are experiencing profound demographic, economic and land use changes and human-induced catchment and climate change. Bangladesh exemplifies these difficulties through multiple climate risks including subsidence/sea-level rise, temperature rise, and changing precipitation patterns, as well as changing management of the Ganges and Brahmaputra catchments. There is a growing population and economy driving numerous more local changes, while dense rural population and poverty remain significant. Identifying appropriate policy and planning responses is extremely difficult in these circumstances. This paper adopts a participatory scenario development process incorporating both socio-economic and biophysical elements across multiple scales and sectors as part of an integrated assessment of ecosystem services and livelihoods in coastal Bangladesh. Rather than simply downscale global perspectives, the analysis was driven by a large and diverse stakeholder group who met with the researchers over four years as the assessment was designed, implemented and applied. There were four main stages: (A) establish meta-framework for the analysis; (B) develop qualitative scenarios of key trends; (C) translate these scenarios into quantitative form for the integrated assessment model analysis; and (D) a review of the model results, which raises new stakeholder insights (e.g., preferred adaptation and policy responses) and questions. Step D can be repeated leading to an iterative learning loop cycle, and the process can potentially be ongoing. The strong and structured process of stakeholder engagement gave strong local ownership of the scenarios and the wider process. This process can be generalised for widespread application across socio-ecological systems following the same four-stage approach. It demands sustained engagement with stakeholders and hence needs to be linked to a long-term research process. However, it facilitates a more credible foundation for planning especially where there are multiple interacting factors.},

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@article{33aacd168a9842a989ab87507179baf4,

title = {Probability weighting for losses and for gains among smallholder farmers in Uganda},

author = {Arjan Verschoor and Ben D'Exelle},

doi = {10.1007/s11238-020-09796-8},

issn = {0040-5833},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-02-01},

journal = {Theory and Decision},

volume = {92},

pages = {223–258},

publisher = {Springer},

abstract = {Probability weighting is a marked feature of decision-making under risk. For poor people in rural areas of developing countries, how probabilities are evaluated matters for livelihoods decisions, especially the probabilities associated with losses. Previous studies of risky choice among poor people in developing countries seldom consider losses and do not offer a refined tracking of the probability-weighting function (PWF). We investigate probability weighting among smallholder farmers in Uganda, separately for losses and for gains, using a method (common consequence ladders) that allows refined tracking of the PWF for a population with low levels of literacy. For losses, we find marked probability weighting near zero, which is in line with evidence found in Western labs. For gains, the absence of probability weighting is remarkable, particularly its absence near 100%. We also find marked differences in probability weighting for traditional farmers which are in line with the observed livelihoods strategies in the study area.},

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@article{6c40855fdcf142c48494ed4ae136133c,

title = {Between a rock and a hard place: The burdens of uncontrolled fire for smallholders across the tropics},

author = {Rachel Carmenta and Federico Cammelli and Wolfram Dressler and Camila Verbicaro and Julie Zähringer},

doi = {10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105521},

issn = {0305-750X},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-09-01},

journal = {World Development},

volume = {145},

publisher = {Elsevier},

abstract = {Once fire-resistant rainforests are becoming fire prone. Uncontrolled fires reflect new ecologies of the Anthropocene, driven by interactions of multiple actors and sectors across scales. They threaten the ecological integrity of tropical forests, impact global climate regimes and importantly cause considerable social and economic burdens. Numerous smallholder farming communities throughout the forested tropics experience the immediate place-based damages of uncontrolled fires and increasingly flammable landscapes. However, these burdens remain largely ‘invisible’ as leading narratives concentrate on losses accrued at aggregate scales, including to climate and biodiversity. Rather, smallholder farmers are often cast as culprits of contagion rooted in colonial condemnation of their customary fire-based agricultural practices. We use an environmental justice lens, notably the dimensions of recognition and distribution, to reveal the distributional burdens of uncontrolled fires for these land managers. We use empirical data from four case studies in three countries: Brazil, Madagascar and the Philippines, to explore the i) burdens of uncontrolled fire, ii) changing risks, iii) drivers and iv) responses to uncontrolled fire, and finally, the v) level of smallholder dependence on intentional fire. We show that place-based burdens of uncontrolled landscape fire are significant, including in landscapes where fire frequency is low. Burdens are both material and non-material and include infringements on food security, health, livelihoods, social relations and the burden of prohibitive fire policy itself. Equitable responses to uncontrolled fires must be sensitive to the distinctions between fire types. Further, we suggest that through bringing visibility to the place-based burdens of uncontrolled fires, we can begin to co-design resilient responses that avoid placing the final burden of risk reduction on to marginalized smallholder farming communities.},

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@article{8e3f854dfede477fbf80ea2f6fd118ca,

title = {Recalibrating burdens of blame: Anti-swidden politics and green governance in the Philippine uplands},

author = {Wolfram H. Dressler and Will Smith and Christian A. Kull and Rachel Carmenta and Juan M. Pulhim},

doi = {10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.01.024},

issn = {0016-7185},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-08-01},

journal = {Geoforum},

volume = {124},

number = {6},

pages = {348–359},

publisher = {Elsevier},

abstract = {In Southeast Asia, the presence of cleared and burned forests has long evoked deep emotions, symbolism and representations that powerfully inform the governance of forests and upland peoples. In particular, the palpable visibility of shifting (swidden) agriculturalists ‘slashing and burning’ forests has fuelled centuries-old political agendas to criminalise swidden farmers for supposedly destroying swaths of forests valued for timber, biodiversity and now ecosystem services. Swidden farmers who regularly clear and burn forests, have endured a disproportionate burden of blame for investing in and maintaining an old livelihood practice into the 21st Century. Drawing on Hall’s politics of representation, we examine the contrasting political frames, management and practices of clearing and burning forests among upland farmers, state and non-state actors who govern forests on Palawan Island, the Philippines. We describe the social, economic, and biophysical character of swidden clearing and burning among the indigenous Tagbanua of central Palawan, whose livelihoods and landscapes are impacted by green governance and enclosures. Informed by several years of ethnographic fieldwork, we explore how and why Tagbanua farmers continue to clear and burn forest despite state and non-state actors criminalising these practices for decades. We argue that, despite sustained vilification and reduced fallows arising from governance policies and enclosures, Tagbanua farmers continue to clear and burn knowing well that, despite the practices being illegal, levels of tolerance and leniency toward swidden is the local norm, rather than exception—highlighting the importance of what we call ‘atmospheres of consent’. Ethnoecological understandings of clearing and burning in the uplands, we argue, are crucial to recalibrating the burden of blame placed on poor farmers whose agriculture is deemed destructive by the region’s burgeoning sustainability discourse.},

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@article{8a2efeb334e94c1cbcaefae46c6e7d00,

title = {Explaining success on community forestry through a lens of environmental justice: Local justice norms and practices in China},

author = {Jun He and Adrian Martin and Rong Lang and Nicole Gross-Camp},

doi = {10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105450},

issn = {0305-750X},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-06-01},

journal = {World Development},

volume = {142},

publisher = {Elsevier},

abstract = {It is of global interest to understand under what conditions community forestry can be successful and sustainable in terms of environmental conservation and local livelihood benefits. Existing theories have explained several influential factors, including small groups of people with shared norms, sound institutions, high levels of decentralization, downward accountability, and security of tenure. This paper explores how local conceptions of environmental justice become closely linked to sustainable community forestry. Based on an in-depth case study in a highly populated and culturally heterogeneous village in southwest China, we examine an enduring example of community forestry, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. The results show that village forest cover has increased significantly over the last 30 years, contributing to improvements in local livelihoods. It is argued that one of the important factors in this success has been villagers’ ability to align forest management with local justice norms and practices. Distributive, procedural, and recognition aspects of justice are considered, and we find that, in combination, these become integral to building effective institutions for collective action. To broaden the focus on successful factors in existing theories, this paper argues that the consideration of justice as an important condition for establishing effective and durable local institutions that will be effective for community forestry. The insights from this study suggest a need to consider justice dimensions in community forestry research to enable improved understanding of its dynamics and outcomes worldwide.},

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@article{081618ab58084b60a52457c88c966c7b,

title = {Culture as a mediator of climate change adaptation: Neither static nor unidirectional},

author = {Roger Few and Dian Spear and Chandni Singh and Mark G. L. Tebboth and Julia E. Davies and Mary C. Thompson-Hall},

doi = {10.1002/wcc.687},

issn = {1757-7780},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-01-01},

journal = {Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change},

volume = {12},

number = {1},

publisher = {Wiley},

abstract = {Though there is increasing recognition of the cultural dimensions that shape climate change adaptation, our experience from working with actors engaged in adaptation policy and practice suggests that the role of culture still tends to be conceived in overly narrow and fixed terms. This is exemplified in portrayals of conservative cultural norms as stifling positive change. A growing body of research across the world indicates that the reality is seldom as simple as this – culture works in complex and variable ways, and, most importantly, is inherently dynamic. Drawing especially from research work on vulnerability and adaptation conducted in semi-arid regions, we illustrate this argument by briefly exploring three themes - multiple knowledge systems for farming in Botswana, the dynamics of pastoralist values and livelihoods in Kenya, and the interplay of caste and livelihood choices in India. Understanding how different facets of culture such as these operate in context helps move away from viewing culture statically as a barrier or enabler, and toward a more plural and dynamic appreciation of the role of culture in adaptation. This includes recognising the potential for factors that may be construed as barriers to become enablers. Critical, balanced engagement with cultural dimensions in both research and practice, understanding and working with these dynamic social structures, is essential if adaptation is to create meaningful and lasting change for those who need it most.},

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