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Trade-offs are manifestations of the complex dynamics in interdependent social-ecological systems. Addressing trade-offs involves challenges of perception due to the dynamics of interdependence. We outline the challenges associated with addressing trade-offs and analyze knowledge coproduction as a practice that may contribute to tackling trade-offs in social-ecological systems. We discuss this through a case study in coastal Kenya in which an iterative knowledge coproduction process was facilitated to reveal social-ecological trade-offs in the face of ecological and socioeconomic change. Representatives of communities, government, and NGOs attended two integrative workshops in which methods derived from systems thinking, dialogue, participatory modeling, and scenarios were applied to encourage participants to engage and evaluate trade-offs. Based on process observation and interviews with participants and scientists, our analysis suggests that this process lead to increased appreciation of interdependences and the way in which trade-offs emerge from complex dynamics of interdependent factors. The process seemed to provoke a reflection of knowledge assumptions and narratives, and management goals for the social-ecological system. We also discuss how stakeholders link these insights to their practices.

Since 2016, the European Union (EU) has required Member States to prevent, control and eradicate selected invasive alien species (IAS) designated as Species of Union Concern. To improve these conservation efforts, online information systems are used to convey IAS information to the wider public, often as a means to bolster community-based environmental monitoring. Despite this, both the conformity and quality of information presented amongst online databases remain poorly understood. Here, we assess the harmonisation and educational potential of four major IAS databases (i.e., conformity of information and information quality, respectively): CABI, EASIN, GISD and NOBANIS. All databases were interrogated for information concerning 49 IAS of Union Concern. For each species, information presented within the evaluated databases was scored in relation to several key topics: morphological identification; EU distribution; detrimental impacts; control options; and the use of source material citations. Overall, scores differed significantly among databases and thus lacked harmonisation, whereby CABI ranked significantly highest based on the combined scores for all topics. In addition, CABI ranked highest for the individual topics of species identification, impacts, control options, and for the use of citations. EASIN ranked highest for species distribution data. NOBANIS consistently ranked as the lowest scoring database across all topics. For each topic, the highest scoring databases achieved scores indicative of detailed or highly detailed information, which suggests a high educational potential for the information portrayed. Nevertheless, the extent of harmonisation and quality of information presented amongst online databases should be improved. This is especially pertinent if online databases are to contribute to public participatory monitoring initiatives for IAS detection.

Ireland, being an island situated on Europe's western seaboard, has a fewer number of native species than mainland European Union Member States (MS). Increased numbers of vectors and pathways have reduced the island's biotic isolation, increasing the risk of new introductions and their associated impacts on native biodiversity. It is likely that these risks are greater here than they are in continental MSs, where the native biodiversity is richer. A horizon scanning approach was used to identify the most likely invasive alien species (IAS) (with the potential to impact biodiversity) to arrive on the island of Ireland within the next ten years. To achieve this, we used a consensus-based approach, whereby expert opinion and discussion groups were utilised to establish and rank a list of 40 species of the most likely terrestrial, freshwater and marine IAS to arrive on the island of Ireland within the decade 2017–2027. The list of 40 included 18 freshwater, 15 terrestrial and seven marine IAS. Crustacean species (freshwater and marine) were taxonomically dominant (11 out of 40); this reflects their multiple pathways of introduction, their ability to act as ecosystem engineers and their resulting high impacts on biodiversity. Freshwater species dominated the top ten IAS (seven species out of ten), with the signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus) highlighted as the most likely species to arrive and establish in freshwaters, while roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) (second) and the warm-water barnacle (Hesperibalanus fallax) (fifth), were the most likely terrestrial and marine invaders. This evidence-based list provides important information to the relevant statutory agencies in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to prioritise the prevention of the most likely invaders and aid in compliance with legislation, in particular the EU Regulation on Invasive Alien Species (EU 1143/2014). Targeted biosecurity in both jurisdictions is urgently required in order to manage the pathways and vectors of arrival, and is vital to maintaining native biodiversity on the island of Ireland.

This paper examines new initiatives in shared mobility of Kashiwa City, a satellite town outside Tokyo, from the users' perspective. In Japan, the transport sector accounts for almost 20 per cent of carbon emissions. At the same time, a population decrease has led to a decline in use of public transport, reducing the level of the quality of life of residents who live in rural and remote areas. This makes residents depend on private cars, ending up contributing to carbon emissions. Three key issues for sustainable mobility to tackle carbon emissions and residents' wellbeing issues are discussed. Kashiwa City has experimented with new shared transport services with fixed-route microbuses and more flexible community taxis. The paper explores user perception and experience of such community mobility services and considers the three issues from the viewpoint of the practice of mobility. Background interviews were conducted with the city's officials and transport service operators, and an ethnographic study was carried out and in-situ conversations were made to explore the utility and meaning of mobility. To increase use of public transport to further reduce CO2 emissions from transport, it is important to pay more attention to the practice of mobility from the user's perspective.

The Shimshal Nature Trust is an indigenous institution rooted in a thriving and dynamic culture that links the local ecology and society. It has deployed identity, traditional knowledge, science, and institutional innovation to adapt to outside challenges without destroying local commons management. This paper reviews scholarly debate on natural resource management and uses resilience theory to examine this complex adaptive system. Two disturbances to Shimshal resilience prompted by a national park and a new road are traced. Shimshali responses include social processes of learning, knowledge systems, and renewal. Ways in which adaptive renewal cycles involve Revolt, a short, fast reaction, and Remember, a larger, slower cascade, are put in perspective. Simple and powerful qaulities that guide change are highlighted. We conclude that the Shimshal Nature Trust creates a resilient interface between the outside and inside worlds. Government, donors, and academics can participate in contextualized action-learning cycles that result in more informed and negotiated contributions to local institutions for commons management.

Macroecological analyses capture the widespread nature of wild mammal range contractions and population declines globally, with Neotropical rainforests particularly vulnerable. Yet there is a paucity of basic population biology data capturing local empirically observed population changes. We generated species-specific and aggregated temporal trends in populations of terrestrial mammals in Cusuco National Park, north-west Honduras testing the effects of body-size, hunting and zonal protection measures. Hunted species, regardless of body size, exhibited declines (ca. -7% per year) with greater rapidity of decline in the park's more accessible and less rigorously protected buffer zone. The site was once regarded as a remaining strong of Baird's tapir (Tapirus bairdii), IUCN Red Listed as Endangered, but our data suggest its near local extirpation from monitored sites. Hunted deer (Mazama temama and Odocoileus virginianus) and paca (Cuniculus paca) also declined substantially. Whilst species-specific trends varied among unhunted species (e.g. wild cats, mustelids etc.) they, nevertheless, also exhibited an aggregated decline throughout the park (ca. -6% per year). Such was the rapidity of these declines that we estimate substaintial mammalian defaunation of Cusuco National Park by the mid-2020s leaving a notionally highly protected area mostly devoid of terrestrial mammals and the associated ecosystem services they deliver (so-called 'empty forest syndrome'). We call on Governments and non-governmental organizations including conservation charities to prioritize urgent efforts to secure funding and personnel to ensure designated areas are adequately protected with enforcement of existing legislative protection whether through patrols or capacity building to efficiently curtail ongoing defaunation.

Invasive alien species (IAS) are a significant and growing problem worldwide. In Europe, some aspects of IAS have been addressed through existing legal instruments, but these are far from sufficient to tackle the problem comprehensively. The FINS II Conference considered the relevance of Top 20 IAS issues (Top 10 threats and opportunities) for Europe determined at the 1st Freshwater Invasiveness – Networking for Strategy (FINS I) conference held in Ireland in 2013. Using a similar format of sequential group voting, threats from FINS I (lack of funding, of awareness and education; poor communication) and several new threats (lack of lead agencies, of standardized management and of common approach; insufficient monitoring and management on private property) were identified by 80 academics, applied scientists, policy makers and stakeholders from 14 EU and three non-EU countries (including 10 invited speakers) during four workshop break-out sessions (legislation remit in both EU/non-EU countries; best management and biosecurity practice for control; data management and early warning; pathways of introductions and citizen science). Identified opportunities include improved cooperation and communication, education and leadership to enhance public awareness and stakeholder participation, systems establishment for early detection, rapid response, monitoring and management of IAS using standardised methods of data collection, storage and usage. The sets of threats and opportunities identified underline the importance of international cooperation on IAS issues in communication, education and funding as priorities, as well as in standardization of legislation, control methods and best practise of research.

The United Nation's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer an extensive framework for coordinating and shaping government policies, and for engaging the public with sustainability. Public understanding of the SDGs and sustainability can influence this engagement, as people are more likely to accept and share information consistent with their own understanding. We identify public understandings of SDGs through mental maps of how people relate the SDGs to environmental, social and economic sustainability. Using responses from 12 developed/developing countries (n = 2,134), we identified four mental maps that varied mainly on two dimensions, which diverged from some expert models. Some people's mental maps identified tension between achieving environmental versus social sustainability, whereas for others the tension was between economic sustainability and the other two sustainability elements. Some people related different SDGs to each element of sustainability, whereas others saw all SDGs as targeting the same sustainability element(s). These findings highlight opportunities and challenges to engage the public with sustainability more effectively, especially with wide-ranging initiatives such as a Green New Deal. We observed cultural differences but we also identified a dominant mental map across countries that could serve as a default model for communicating sustainability internationally.

Shared use of rangelands by livestock and wildlife can lead to disease transmission. To align agricultural livelihoods with wildlife conservation, a multipronged and interdisciplinary approach for disease management is needed, particularly in data‐limited situations with migratory hosts. Migratory wildlife and livestock can range over vast areas, and opportunities for disease control interventions are limited. Predictive frameworks are needed which can allow for identification of potential sites and timings of interventions. We developed an iterative three‐step framework to assess cross‐species disease transmission risk between migrating wildlife and livestock in data‐limited circumstances and across social‐ecological scales. The framework first assesses risk of transmission for potentially important diseases for hosts in a multi‐use landscape. Following this, it uses an epidemiological risk function to represent transmission‐relevant contact patterns, using density and distribution of the host to map locations and periods of disease risk. Finally, it takes fine‐scale data on livestock management and observed wildlife–livestock interactions to provide locally relevant insights on disease risk. We applied the framework to characterize disease transmission between livestock and saiga antelopes Saiga tatarica in Central Kazakhstan. At step 1, we identified peste‐des‐petits‐ruminants as posing a high risk of transmission from livestock to saigas, foot‐and‐mouth disease as low risk, lumpy skin disease as unknown and pasteurellosis as uncertain risk. At step 2, we identified regions of high disease transmission risk at different times of year, indicating where disease management should be focussed. At step 3, we synthesized field surveys, government data and literature review to assess the role of livestock in the 2015 saiga mass mortality event from pasteurellosis, concluding that it was minimal. Synthesis and applications. Our iterative framework has wide applicability in assessing and predicting disease spill‐over at management‐relevant temporal and spatial scales in areas where livestock share space with migratory species. Our case study demonstrated the value of combining ecological and social information to inform management of targeted interventions to reduce disease risk, which can be used to plan disease surveillance and vaccination programmes.

Substantial controversy is a consistent feature of UK animal health and welfare policy. BSE, foot and mouth disease, bovine TB and badger culling, large indoor dairies, and wild animals in circuses are examples. Such policy issues are inherently normative; they include a substantial moral dimension. This paper reviews UK animal welfare advisory bodies such as the Animal Health and Welfare Board of England, the Farm Animal Welfare Council and the Animals in Science Committee. These bodies play a key advisory role, but do not have adequate expertise in ethics to inform the moral dimension of policy. We propose an "Ethics Council for Animal Policy" to inform the UK government on policy that significantly impacts sentient species. We review existing Councils (e.g., the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and The Netherlands Council on Animal Affairs) and examine some widely used ethical frameworks (e.g., Banner's principles and the ethical matrix). The Ethics Council for Animal Policy should be independent from government and members should have substantial expertise in ethics and related disciplines. A pluralistic six-stage ethical framework is proposed: (i) Problematisation of the policy issue, (ii) utilitarian analysis, (iii) animal rights analysis, (iv) virtue-based analysis, (v) animal welfare ethic analysis, and (vi) integrated ethical analysis. The paper concludes that an Ethics Council for Animal Policy is necessary for just and democratic policy making in all societies that use sentient nonhuman species.

Military activities have left a legacy of depleted uranium (DU) penetrator waste in the near-surface terrestrial environment. To understand the fate of this DU alloy, the mechanisms and controlling factors of corrosion need to be determined. In this study, field-moist and waterlogged microcosms were used to investigate the effect of redox conditions and soil water content on the corrosion and fate of DU in subsurface soil, and the impact of corroding DU on the soil microbial population. The mechanism of corrosion and the corrosion products formed were highly dependent on the water status of the soil. Under field-moist conditions, DU corroded at a rate of 0.49 ± 0.06 g cm -2 y-1 and the main U input to surrounding soil was large metaschoepite [(UO2)8O2(OH) 12·(H2O)10] particles. However, under waterlogged conditions the rate of corrosion was significantly slower at 0.01-0.02 g cm-2 y-1 and occurred with the release of dissolved species to the surrounding environment. Corrosion ceases under reducing conditions, thus redox conditions are important in determining the persistence of penetrators in the environment. Corroding DU alters the redox conditions in the surrounding environment and both mechanisms of corrosion impact the microbial community. © 2009 American Chemical Society.

While there is a substantial body of research focused on the links between North-South trade and sustainable development, research on South-South trade and sustainable development is still in its infancy. Given current understandings of the drivers of sustainable development, one might expect increasing trade in agricultural commodities within the global South to have a negative impact on sustainable development opportunities. In this sense, the Ceylon tea industry presents a puzzle. Despite exporting most of its tea to Southern markets, it has been among the top performers in terms of economic, social, and environmental practices. As such, the case raises a number of questions around shifting trade patterns and their implications for sustainability outcomes. I address these questions through four propositions – three mechanisms and one condition – through which South-South trade can expand the opportunities for sustainable development. While the exact nature of sustainable development outcomes will ultimately be decided through domestic political struggles, shifts toward more equal trade can make sustainable production more likely. Overall, the analysis draws attention to nuanced ways in which end markets shape their respective supply chains and how these dynamics impact the potential for actors operating at the bottom of supply chains to shape sustainability outcomes.

The discursive and representational aspects of the multiple political, economic and cultural challenges associated with low carbon urban transitions remain insufficiently explored in the academic literature. This is particularly true in the post-communist states of eastern and central Europe, which have been undergoing an additional transition of their own-from a centrally planned to a market-based economy. This paper, therefore, explores the manner in which climate change and sustainability narratives have been implicated in the development of 'satellite settlements'-a specific form of sprawl present in the Czech Republic. Much of the paper is focused on investigating the discursive framings of such areas by relevant state policies and the national media in this country. Several key themes and discursive shifts in the representation of satellite settlements have been detected. Such changes may be connected to wider interactions among the dynamics of post-communist and low-carbon urban transition. © 2013 Urban Studies Journal Limited.

There now exists a significant body of theoretically informed empirical research into 'neoliberal environments'. It comprises numerous studies which together explore the connections between neoliberal principles and policies, on the one side, and the biophysical world on the other. However, making sense of them is by no means straightforward, despite their common focus on neoliberal environments. It is currently left to readers of these studies to synthesise them into a wider, joined-up account of neoliberal environments. This and two companion articles aim for precisely this sort of broad and coherent understanding. The contribution of this second instalment is to present an overarching political economic theory of 'neoliberal environments'. By synthesising concepts from the work of Karl Marx, Karl Polanyi and James O'Connor, this article presents a framework for thinking about how neoliberal policies relate to the biophysical world. © 2010 The Author. Geography Compass © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

There now exists a significant body of theoretically informed empirical research into 'neoliberal environments'. It comprises numerous studies which together explore the connections between neoliberal principles and policies, on the one side and the biophysical world on the other. These studies are, for the most part, political economic in character and authored by so-called 'critical' geographers. However, making sense of them is by no means straightforward, despite their common focus on neoliberal environments. This is because neoliberalism and the biophysical world are complex phenomena, making an holistic and comprehensive understanding of them very challenging to achieve. Accordingly, separate studies of their interconnections have focused on one or other aspect of the complexity in a particular time and context. It is currently left to readers of these studies to synthesise them into a wider, joined-up account of neoliberal environments. This and two companion articles aim for precisely this sort of broad and coherent understanding. This article begins with a discussion of neoliberalism and explains why it necessarily has environmental aspects to it. The second companion article presents a theory of 'neoliberal environments', while the third connects that theory to the empirical findings of studies published to-date. This final article also departs from the otherwise constructive tone of its companions. Together, the three articles offer readers both an overarching understanding of 'neoliberal environments' and some tools to question the way these environments are currently understood by many geographers. © 2010 The Author. Geography Compass © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.