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Policy Brief: The Amazon has a diverse array of social and environmental initiatives that adopt forest-based land-use practices to promote rural development and support local livelihoods. However, they are often insufficiently recognized as transformative pathways to sustainability. This brief 1) identifies the key factors that enable these place-based initiatives to achieve successful social-ecological outcomes and 2) suggests policies to better support these grassroots efforts in addressing environmental and social challenges in the region, such as: • Promoting policies that prioritize and empower local grassroots leadership in sustainability initiatives. • Encouraging diversification in activities and partnerships to increase resilience and impact. • Promoting collaboration across different governance levels and sectors to support sustainability efforts.
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Governance of interdependent ecosystem services and common-pool resources
Environmental governance is recognized as a key issue in many natural and social sciences. It is highly relevant for ecosystem services and common-pool resources as well. Both fields overlap yet have typically been studied separately. Therefore, this study aimed a) to examine the emerging body of literature that incorporates concepts from both fields of research and considers governance challenges, and b) to identify policy tools and recommendations presented for addressing those challenges. The analysis of thirty-nine selected peer-review papers revealed the multiplicity of interacting governance challenges with three major categories: environmental, socioeconomic, and problems of governance itself. Governance is impeded by institutional mismatches, exclusion of local actors, corruption, and perverse policies. The proposed policy recommendations most often suggest changes in institutional arrangements and increasing scientific understanding. Meeting human needs, and increasing social equity and justice were recognized broadly as integral for improving governance, yet correlations among governance problems and solutions appear elusive. These findings extend theoretical reasoning, while carrying practical implications for policy, governance and environmental stewardship. The analysis implies that policies to improve human conditions will be key for improved environmental governance, but more research is needed to learn which types of policy recommendations prove successful given diverse local contexts.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2201586
- PAR ID:
- 10522040
- Publisher / Repository:
- Elsevier
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Land Use Policy
- Volume:
- 127
- Issue:
- C
- ISSN:
- 0264-8377
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 106575
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Governance challenges Ecosystem services Common-pool resources Policy Governance recommendations
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106575
