Publications

Hana Matsubara, Abigayil Blandon, Mary Tomita, Sonia Batten, Sanae Chiba, Tetsuo Fujii, Daisuke Hasegawa, Marloes Kraan, Doug Lipton, L Richard Little, Alondra Sofia Rodriguez Buelna, Mitsutaku Makino. 2025. Shaping the future of marine socio-ecological systems science: combining interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches and knowledge co-creation with diverse stakeholders. ICES Journal of Marine Science. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsaf059

Following the first symposium held in Brest, France, in 2016, the second Marine Socio-Ecological Systems Symposium (MSEAS) was held in Yokohama, Japan, in 2024, after 4 years of postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2016, interdisciplinary efforts to inform ocean governance using the Social-Ecological System (SES) approach was highlighted as highly necessary. MSEAS 2024 emphasized the combination of interdisciplinary a...

Shun Kageyama, Abigayil Blandon, Robert Blasiak. 2025. Exploring the diverse values local people associate with marine protected areas and the implications for sustainable ocean management. Ocean & Coastal Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2024.107523

Marine protected area (MPA) management requires local people's participation in order to deliver lasting ecological and social benefits . This is crucial to avoid “paper parks” and to encourage self-regulation and enhance social well-being among stakeholders. However, promoting sustained participation by diverse stakeholders is a challenge due to the diversity of ways in which they perceive the benefits of MPAs, and some o...

Mary Scheuermann, Jacob Hileman, Line J Gordon, Lisen Schultz. 2025. Who can change what? Self-perceived, attributed and structural influence among actors in the Swedish grain legume system. Environmental Research: Food Systems. https://doi.org/10.1088/2976-601X/ae07e4

Increasing the supply and human consumption of grain legumes is one important strategy to orient food systems towards healthy and sustainable diets. This requires well-performing value chains and collaboration among a diverse set of actors, from governments to farmers. Using Sweden as an illustrative case, this study explores actors’ perceptions of influence over actions identified to have leverage to change grain legume consu...

Agnes Pranindita, Adriaan J. Teuling, Ingo Fetzer, Lan Wang-Erlandsson. 2025. Publisher Correction: Forests support global crop supply through atmospheric moisture transport. Nature Water. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-025-00546-0

Agnes Pranindita, Adriaan J. Teuling, Ingo Fetzer, Lan Wang-Erlandsson. 2025. Forests support global crop supply through atmospheric moisture transport. Nature Water. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-025-00518-4

Anomalous precipitation patterns associated with climate change increasingly threaten global crop supply. Forests, as major moisture source, could potentially buffer these risks, yet their specific role in sustaining agriculture and global crop supply remains underexplored. We investigate global forests’ contribution to crop production and export by estimating moisture flows from forests to agricultural areas and pairing them ...

Johan Enqvist, Kinga Psiuk, Luke Metelerkamp. 2025. Mobilizing stewardship through theater: Pathways to transform polarizing conservation conflicts. Earth Stewardship. https://doi.org/10.1002/eas2.70028

Since human–nature relationships are inherently complex, so are stewardship responses to environmental problems. This can cause social conflict and polarization, especially when the complexity is overwhelming and responses seem to challenge fundamental ideas about human–nature relations. Arts-based methods and creative practices can help people reflect and reimagine such ideas. This paper uses Vervoort et al.'s nine dimensions...

Hallie Eakin, Johan Enqvist, Maike Hamann, Nadine Methner, Martha Nthambi Sibanda, Jade Sullivan, Ernita van Wyk, Gina Ziervogel. 2025. Negotiating informality and urban resilience: implications for equity. Ecology and Society. https://doi.org/10.5751/es-16059-300220

Informality is a distinguishing characteristic of cities in the Global South and is strongly associated with urban inequality. Yet, in pursuing resilience, urban resilience strategies and planning have yet to grapple with the role of informality in social-ecological dynamics, resulting in incomplete representations of the reality of these cities’ socioeconomic and demographic diversity. Neglect of informality has significant, ...

Maraja Riechers, Tamara Schaal‐Lagodzinski, Laura Pereira, Jacqueline Loos, Joern Fischer. 2025. ‘Chains of leverage’ as way to identify and foster transformative potential. People and Nature. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.70144

We propose the framework of ‘chains of leverage’. It is an operationalisation to understand and analyse the transformative potential of social-ecological systems and identify leverage points for sustainability transformations through a concrete four-step approach. Step 1 : Analysing the social-ecological system regarding its core elements across system depth. Elements in a system can be situated at different system depths (f...

Laura M. Pereira, Sally Archibald, Odirilwe Selomane, Kim Zoeller, Mohammed Armani, James Kairo, Barney Kgope, Duncan M. Kimuyu, Blandina R. Lugendo, Denise Nicolau, Mike I. Olendo, Kelly Ortega-Cisneros, Lynne J. Shannon, U. Rashid Sumaila. 2025. Six principles to get natural climate solutions right in Africa. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01652-3

Laura M. Pereira, Steven R. Smith, Lauren Gifford, Peter Newell, Sebastian Villasante, Therezah Achieng, Azucena Castro, Sara M. Constantino, Tom Powell, Ashish Ghadiali, Ben Smith, Coleen Vogel, Caroline Zimm. 2025. Beyond tipping points: risks, equity, and the ethics of intervention. Earth System Dynamics. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-1267-2025

Earth system tipping points pose existential threats to current and future generations, both human and non-human, with those least responsible for causing them facing the greatest risks. “Positive” social tipping points (that we shorten to positive tipping points, or PTPs) are often deliberate interventions into social systems with the aim of rapidly mitigating the risks of Earth system tipping. However, the desire to interven...