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AbstractGiven that wolves have been extinct in Germany for approximately 150 years, their return and growing population over the last decade has caused intense discussion and conflict. To develop a widely accepted and just coexistence between humans and wolves, a comprehensive understanding of the conflict is needed. There are indications that the conflict goes beyond dealing with the wolf population and marks a spatial–cultural divide between urban and rural areas. Nevertheless, the social dimensions of the human–wolf conflict in Germany have been little studied. The aim of this paper is to narrow this gap by means of a media discourse analysis including reader comments in order to provide insights into the constituent elements of this conflict. We conducted a qualitative content analysis. The sample comprises articles (n = 63) and reader comments (n = 515) over a period of one year (5/2018-5/2019) from six online periodicals in Germany. The results support the assumption of an urban–rural divide in terms of perspectives and values. The discourse indicates that rural actors who are most affected by the wolves' vicinity have more negative attitudes towards them. At the same time, they feel abandoned and dominated by urban perspectives and politics. In addition, linkages to right-wing populist positions and conspiracy narratives that can be interpreted as a consequence of political alienation are found.

The extent to which the digitalisation of agriculture will make a significant contribution to solving urgent sustainability challenges will depend on the design of political, legal and economic frameworks. In this context, social discourses play a central role as they not only reflect collective interpretations and systems of meaning but also reproduce power relations in "truth regimes" and prepare policy actions. While a critical scientific debate on unintended side effects of the digital transformation on agriculture has recently emerged, there is little knowledge about the discourse relations beyond academia. This article presents the results of a discourse analysis during a two-day online conference on the digital transformation of the agricultural value chain. We systematically visited and analysed sessions and presentations. The aim was to identify the main themes, concepts and ideas and different perspectives among actors from science and practice. The results show a wide range of perceived opportunities and challenges but also controversies, especially regarding governance issues such as regulation versus nonregulation, centralised versus decentralised data sharing, the appropriate design of data sovereignty models and trust and evolving inequalities. In addition, it became apparent that discourses on digitalisation are largely expert affairs. We discuss and conclude that a sustainability-oriented digital transformation requires a critical perspective, reflexivity and an adaptive governance approach where science–society collaborations play a central role.

The extent to which the digitalisation of agriculture will make a significant contribution to solving urgent sustainability challenges will depend on the design of political, legal and economic frameworks. In this context, social discourses play a central role as they not only reflect collective interpretations and systems of meaning but also reproduce power relations in "truth regimes" and prepare policy actions. While a critical scientific debate on unintended side effects of the digital transformation on agriculture has recently emerged, there is little knowledge about the discourse relations beyond academia. This article presents the results of a discourse analysis during a two-day online conference on the digital transformation of the agricultural value chain. We systematically visited and analysed sessions and presentations. The aim was to identify the main themes, concepts and ideas and different perspectives among actors from science and practice. The results show a wide range of perceived opportunities and challenges but also controversies, especially regarding governance issues such as regulation versus nonregulation, centralised versus decentralised data sharing, the appropriate design of data sovereignty models and trust and evolving inequalities. In addition, it became apparent that discourses on digitalisation are largely expert affairs. We discuss and conclude that a sustainability-oriented digital transformation requires a critical perspective, reflexivity and an adaptive governance approach where science–society collaborations play a central role.

AbstractTraditional cultural landscapes are of special value not only for reasons of nature conservation and high species diversity but also because they intersect with the identity of local communities, support recreation and tourism, and preserve cultural heritage. Structural changes in rural areas threaten these unique sceneries and environments in Europe and worldwide. As a result, the question of how to maintain and manage cultural landscapes where economic benefits are not assured has become a priority in science and in practice. Considering this context, community-based collaborative landscape management (CLM) can be considered an innovative and promising approach. This paper presents results from a stakeholder analysis examining the preconditions and opportunities for initiating a CLM in the biosphere reserve known as 'Spreewald'. The results indicate that due to the type of problem (landscape change)—which is characterised by complexity, beneficial linkages to a multitude of actor groups, and broad problem awareness—CLM appears to be feasible. However, other preconditions related to social relationships among actor groups, questions of legitimate coordination and the collaborative capacity of the community are not met, thus reducing the likelihood of success. To address these challenges, we discuss the potential of transdisciplinary processes (TD) to assist local communities in establishing such a collaborative problem-solving and management approach. We show that TD is highly valuable and supportive during this critical stage of emerging collaboration.

Research for Sustainable Land Management appears to be a designated field for a transdiciplinary approach. Because of the number of involved scientific disciplines, stakeholders and target groups, sustainable land management is characterized by a high level of complexity. An integrative understanding is required that goes beyond disciplinary knowledge and sectoral viewpoints, including diverse societal needs, values as well as local knowledge. From April 17th to April 19th 2013, the 'Sustainable Land Management' funding measure launched by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research sponsored a status conference in Berlin, Germany, to discuss findings from the first 3 years. This article reports on experiences with and discussion results about transdisciplinary research. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Bioeconomic ideas and visions have received increasing attention from scientists and policy makers to address socioecological challenges. However, the role of imagined futures in the design of bioeconomic innovations and transitions has hitherto been widely neglected. In this study, we therefore explore the role of imaginaries of the future to understand how they shape bioeconomic innovations and transitions. We thereby build on insights from economic sociology and compare two distinct case studies from Germany and India. Based on our results, we inductively develop an analytic model that describes the co-constitution of imaginaries, fictional expectations, narratives, and innovation dynamics. Our results show that narrative dynamics are caused by irritations in the political and discursive landscape; these irritations prompt economic actors to stabilize, adapt, or reject their own bioeconomic conceptions, while the underlying imaginary of a technological fix remains fixed. We discuss this reductionist imaginary and instead plead for an imaginary of a socioecological fix that reintertwines technologies with their underlying societal, cultural, and ecological factors. We conclude that this will support sustainability scholars and policy makers in remaining vigilant against premature mental and institutional lock-ins that could lead to a colonization of the future with severe negative implications for society's ability to mitigate and adapt to global environmental change in the future.

Bislang existiert kein Pendant zum Konzept der Smart City für ländliche Räume. Ein solches Konzept kann auf die Erkenntnisse und Erfahrungen für den urbanen Kontext zurückgreifen, muss aber die Eigenarten und Strukturen ländlicher Räume adäquat berücksichtigen. Hier setzt das in diesem Beitrag entwickelte Konzept für Smart Countryside mit seiner handlungsorientierenden Rahmensetzung an. Durch eine integrative Betrachtung aktueller Trends und Tendenzen, normativer Debatten um Gleichwertigkeit und Gerechtigkeit sowie Möglichkeiten in verschiedenen Handlungsfeldern zeigt es Entwicklungsoptionen auf, die durch Digitalisierung und ,smarte' Umsetzung möglich werden. Ihre Realisierung sollte dabei stark bedürfnisorientiert erfolgen. Das Konzept konzentriert sich damit auch auf Governance-Prozesse und plädiert für Wissensmanagement und die Anwendung von Co-Design- Ansätzen. Es blickt somit auf Digitalisierungspotenziale jenseits reiner Technikfixierung. Das hier vorgestellte Konzept zur Digitalisierung kann zu einer umfassenderen Transformation ländlicher Räume in Richtung Nachhaltigkeit beitragen. Es formuliert einen gemeinsamen Gestaltungsauftrag für Politik, Gesellschaft und Wissenschaft.

Preface -- Overview of Chapters -- Sustainable land management and the co-creation of knowledge -- Part 1 (State and drivers) -- Land use change in Europe (Overview) -- Energy demand and land use change -- New economic drivers for land use change -- Demographic change and land use change -- Urbanisation and land use change -- Urban-rural interrelations -- Part 2 (Co-Design and Co-Production) -- Transdisciplinarity in land use sciences -- Tipping Points of Innovations for Sustainable Land Management -- Experimental games in sustainable land management -- Part 3 (Co-evolution: New system solutions and Governance) -- System solutions in sustainable land management – from small scale technical solutions to overarching solutions for society -- Regional Material Flow Management as a tool to develop resilient villages -- Supply chains and land management -- The re-invention of urban agriculture - innovation and acceptance of a new trend -- Approaches of Sustainable Landmanagement: International practices and innovative solutions -- Ecosystem services and development of green infrastructure -- Part 4 (Co-dissemination) -- New ways of implementation and transfer for sustainability -- Knowledge management for governance -- Part 5 -- Upcoming challenges in land use science – an international perspective -- Conclusions and research perspectives.

This open access book presents and discusses current issues and innovative solution approaches for land management in a European context. Manifold sustainability issues are closely interconnected with land use practices. Throughout the world, we face increasing conflict over the use of land as well as competition for land. Drawing on experience in sustainable land management gained from seven years of the FONA programme (Research for Sustainable Development, conducted under the auspices of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research), the book stresses and highlights co-design processes within the "co-creation of knowledge", involving collaboration in transdisciplinary research processes between academia and other stakeholders. The book begins with an overview of the current state of land use practices and the subsequent need to manage land resources more sustainably. New system solutions and governance approaches in sustainable land management are presented from a European perspective on land use. The volume also addresses how to use new modes of knowledge transfer between science and practice. New perspectives in sustainable land management and methods of combining knowledge and action are presented to a broad readership in land system sciences and environmental sciences, social sciences and geosciences.