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The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set forth by the United Nations represent a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people, enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. The SDGs have been criticized as aspirational and over-ambitious, and recent assessments suggest many of the goals may not be met by 2030. This study investigates the perceptions of Ghanaian university students regarding the attainability of the SDGs and identifies the educational and informational enablers that enhance their engagement with these goals. A total of 400 students drawn from three universities — University of Ghana (n = 200), Central University (n = 100), and University for Development Studies (n = 100) — participated in a structured questionnaire survey. The findings reveal a dual perspective among students: there is significant optimism about achieving SDGs related to quality education, gender equality, and clean water, whereas skepticism prevails regarding the goals aimed at eradicating poverty and achieving zero hunger. The study also highlights the critical role of universities as facilitators in the discourse and actions toward the SDGs. It emphasizes the potential of leveraging digital and social media to boost student engagement and calls for an integration of SDG-focused studies into university curricula. The study provides insights into the need for enhanced educational strategies and inter-institutional collaborations to prepare students effectively for their roles in global sustainability efforts. It is vital for higher education institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, where sustainability challenges are significant and innovative solutions are often lacking, to embed SDG-focused studies into their curricula and promote student engagement in SDG initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is recognized as a global leader in sustainable forest management. Canadian forests and the forest sector remain vital pillars of the Canadian economy and home to many rural and remote communities. However, climate change is an existential threat to the sustainability of forests and forest-dependent communities. While both direct and indirect threats posed by climate change to Canada's forest sector are now well understood, our understanding of specific forest practices that have emerged from the body of science to mitigate and adapt to climate change impacts is not well documented. Through a review of the scientific and grey literature, this study expands our knowledge and operational gaps associated with implementing climate change adaptation and mitigation practices in Canadian forests. The study found a dearth of literature specifically dedicated to reporting on the type of forest practices currently in use across Canada to address mitigation and adaptation. Most reports or studies were published in 2019 or later, with federal and provincial governments being the dominant actors in reporting and monitoring, research, and funding. Across the 15 terrestrial ecozones in Canada, forest practices linked to climate change were reported in 12 ecozones, with most practices reported in the Montane Cordillera located in western Canada. Common forest practices reported include fuel management, assisted migration, enhanced silvicultural activities, and carbon offset projects. We conclude that climate change adaptation/mitigation practices in Canada are in their early stages of implementation. Many practices remain in experimental stages (e.g., genetic trials) or are implemented at a relatively small scale in Canada (e.g., climate-based seed transfer and carbon reserves). The literature suggests that the most mainstream practices associated with climate change mitigation in Canada include tree planting for carbon sequestration and the designation of protected areas to enhance ecosystem resilience. We conclude that despite increasing reports linking climate change benefits with reported forest practices, the reporting in the scientific literature is scarce, poorly reported, and often not grounded in credible evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With its northern location, the exposure and vulnerability of Canada's forest ecosystems to climate change impacts are all too glaring. While there is now an extensive body of literature describing expected climate change impacts and potential responses, studies characterizing the implementation of adaptation and mitigation practices in forest management remain rare in the Canadian forest sector. Using a systematic literature review, we examined reports on forest management practices implemented in response to climate change, specifically focusing on governance and institutional arrangements that either support or limit climate change adaptation and mitigation responses. Our literature sample size of 24 documents suggests that the body of literature reporting on adaptation and mitigation practices in forest management is scarce. Governments remain the dominant actors providing funding and leading the implementation and reporting of climate change adaptation practices, primarily in response to national or international climate change commitments. Forest practices such as enhanced silviculture, assisted migration, and nature-based solutions were the most frequently reported. However, given the scarcity of literature, it is difficult to conclude the scope of climate change adaptation practice uptake in Canada. Barriers such as lack of information/data, inter-jurisdictional knowledge transfer, policy conflicts, forest tenure models, technical capacity gaps, and economic barriers to adaptation need to be overcome to strengthen climate change response in forest management. Better coordination of reporting at the provincial and national levels and improved information flows between private sector organizations and governments are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews trends in the academic literature on cumulative effects assessment (CEA) of disturbance on forest ecosystems to advance research in the broader context of impact assessments. Disturbance is any distinct spatiotemporal event that disrupts the structure and composition of an ecosystem affecting resource availability. We developed a Python package to automate search term selection, write search strategies, reduce bias and improve the efficient and effective selection of articles from academic databases and grey literature. We identified 148 peer-reviewed literature published between 1986 and 2022 and conducted an inductive and deductive thematic analysis of the results. Our findings revealed that CEA studies are concentrated in the global north, with most publications from authors affiliated with government agencies in the USA and Canada. Methodological and analytical approaches are less interdisciplinary but mainly quantitative and expert-driven, involving modeling the impacts of disturbances on biophysical valued components. Furthermore, the assessment of socioeconomic valued components, including the effects of disturbance on Indigenous wellbeing connected to forests, has received less attention. Even though there is a high preference for regional assessment, challenges with data access, quality, and analysis, especially baseline data over long periods, are hampering effective CEA. Few articles examined CEA – policy/management nexus. Of the few studies, challenges such as the inadequate implementation of CEA mitigation strategies due to policy drawbacks and resource constraints, the high cost of monitoring multiple indicators, and poor connections between scenarios/modeling and management actions were paramount. Future CEA research is needed to broaden our understanding of how multiple disturbance affects forests in the global south and coupled social and ecological systems and their implications for sustainable forest management. • We review cumulative effect assessments of disturbances in forest ecosystems. • The study developed a Python package to automate the search term selection. • We identified 148 peer review and grey literature across 29 countries. • Most studies are located in the global north, and methodologies are expert-driven. • Study should focus on how disturbance affects coupled social and ecological systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We identify how changes in Canada's CEA policy landscape impact CEA research. • We analyzed and compared Canada's 2012 CEA and 2019 IAA policies and guidelines. • We systematically review CEA research in Canada's forest ecosystem. • We found few research considered indigenous and public engagement. • We recommend training to provide researchers with the tools for comprehensive CEA. Cumulative effects assessment (CEA), as a subset of environmental impact assessment, has been used over the past half-century to evaluate the impact of anthropogenic and natural processes on the integrity of forest ecosystems. In 2019, the Canadian federal government launched the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) and the Practitioner's Guide to Federal Impact Assessment to replace the 2012 Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA) and the Practitioner's Guide. The new act emphasizes, among other issues, the need for CEA research to actively engage Indigenous communities and the public and apply a gender-based analysis (GBA) plus framework in their assessment. This paper aims to identify how cumulative effects research in Canadian forestry has progressed over time and how it aligns with federal government guidelines under the Impact Assessment Act of 2019. Through a systematic review of CEA research in Canada since 1992 and a document analysis, we examine the conduct of CEA research and compare the 2012 CEAA and the 2019 IAA and their respective practitioners' guides to identify key similarities and differences and establish the influence of the 2019 IAA on CEA research. This accounts for how adaptive CEA research in Canada is to the changing landscape, specifically in measuring and addressing the impacts of disturbances on different interest groups. While much of CEA research followed the impact identification and reporting requirements of the 2012 CEAA and 2019 IAA, few research projects, particularly those written after 2019, paid much attention to Indigenous and public participation, while none considered GBA Plus in their analysis. This is despite the availability of GBA Plus, Indigenous, and public engagement guidelines and resources identified in the 2019 practitioners guide. We recommend active engagement between federal regulatory agencies and industry to ensure that industry and researchers have the proper training and resources to facilitate more meaningful consideration and integration of GBA Plus, including Indigenous and public engagement processes in their CEA research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]