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Over the past two decades, voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) have emerged as instruments to improve social and environmental practices and to communicate sustainability standards in trade and business. However, debates about the correct assessment methodology for VSS risk causing duplication, overlaps, and fragmentation, undermining the value of VSS in sustainability transition. In this paper I propose materiality, theory of change and reflexive governance as the three building blocks of an appropriate framework for VSS and other sustainability assessment schemes in the food and agricultural sectors. Materiality is the specific criteria for defining and assessing factors that matter for sustainability, such as indicators, metrics, and rankings. Materiality is a process of social construction that enables stakeholder engagement and integrated knowledge production, going beyond just benchmarking entities against their competitors using standardized measures. Theory of change is a method that explains how interventions lead to desired outcomes and changes but is much more than a linear logic model of inputs and outputs. It sheds light on underlying assumptions, embedded contexts and long- and short-term dynamics. Reflexive evaluation consists of a single-loop process that follows a problemdetection-correction course and double- and triple-loop learning that allows assumptions and learned propositions to be challenged. It highlights unintended outcomes and offers alternatives to conducting interventions, which is different from conventional monitoring and evaluation methods, which focus on measuring the attainment of intended outcomes only. The study concludes that the semantic meaning of "standards" and "assessment" in agricultural VSS abstract the complex nature of sustainability because of overly linear meaning. In the complex construct of sustainability assessment, the role of VSS is not to conclude a success or a failure but to encourage knowledge-based learning and accountable governance because social change is an open-ended validation and adaption process. The framework proposed by this paper offers a solution by calling for integrated knowledge production resulting from interdisciplinary assessments and learning-oriented actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Livelihoods are activities and practices in which social and environmental factors interlink, and they play a key role in achieving human well-being and environmental conservation. Livelihood analyses are therefore important to social-ecological systems research. With a few exceptions, however, the concept of agency has been largely missing in research applying the social-ecological systems approach. This is an important gap to address, because humans are not passive victims of broader sociopolitical trends and environmental changes, but rather play causative roles that shape history. This paper presents a conceptual framework that enables the explicit integration of agency into livelihood analyses, and is useful for examining the extent to which livelihoods enable people to be agents of their own well-being, and stewards of their environment. The framework has four pillars of agency: preconditions (referring to capital assets and resources, or CARs); processes (feedbacks and dynamics); power (the social and political fabrics, and relations in which livelihoods are embedded); and possibilities (the extent to which a present livelihood expands into future options, and builds the ability to act on options). The framework is then applied to a case study analyzing smallholder farming livelihoods and food security in southwest Ethiopia. The case study is based on empirical work involving quantitative survey, in-depth interviews, and focus-group discussions. This paper demonstrates the applicability of the framework to identifying agency constraints in smallholder farming, and helps determine areas where agency can be further strengthened. Beyond the case study, the framework may also be applied in other contexts and to other livelihood types. Its application can strengthen the contribution of livelihood analysis to social-ecological systems research by providing a way to operationalize and foreground agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global shift toward agricultural specialization in the 20th century led to unprecedented ecological and socioeconomic changes, both positive and negative, in rural landscapes. Economic theory describes comparative advantage and market participation as two important drivers of such changes. Landscapes in the Global South are still often characterized by subsistence agriculture and direct dependence on natural ecosystem processes. Agricultural specialization is part of the structural transformation process from subsistence to market-oriented agriculture. However, comparative advantage and market participation as major drivers for agricultural specialization remain understudied. In this paper, we assess the potential drivers of ecosystem service specialization in an Ethiopian smallholder landscape at the kebele level, the smallest administrative unit in Ethiopia. We measured specialization via the concentration of production for a range of locally important provisioning ecosystem services (beef, cattle, coffee, eucalyptus, honey, maize, sorghum, and teff). We measured comparative advantage based on productivity data, and assessed spatial flows of ecosystem services to local, regional, and global markets (i.e., telecoupling). To unpack the relationships between specialization, comparative advantage, and telecoupling, we used hierarchical clustering, principal component analysis, correlation analysis, and linear regression. More telecoupled kebeles (i.e., kebeles that produced more of ecosystem services that flow to broader spatial scales) were more specialized in their ecosystem service production, and the positive relationship between comparative advantage and specialization grew stronger with altitude. Wealthier kebeles and kebeles with higher population density were less specialized. Biophysical drivers, such as altitude and amount of forest cover, influenced the ecosystem services produced and the relationship between comparative advantage and specialization. Policy makers should therefore try to balance potential positive and negative consequences of specialization, and to account for fine-scale social and biophysical drivers underpinning diverse ecosystem service production profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflict over natural resources is a widespread phenomenon in the global south. Trends in consumption, demographics, environmental degradation, and socio-political dynamics are exerting significant pressure on the availability and accessibility of natural resources. In many countries, the governance of land for commercial agricultural investment leads to conflict. Such conflicts are complex, and the drivers extend beyond resource scarcity to issues of access and competition. This paper is based on the results of field research on investments in large-scale Jatropha plantations for biofuel production in Ethiopia. A case study of a large-scale Jatropha plantation in eastern-central Ethiopia is used to reconstruct the history of a short-lived, large-scale biofuel development in Ethiopia, and to examine the processes and the reasons for its failure. Between 2006 and 2009, more than 400,000 ha of land were acquired for industrial biofuel development. Given the country's dependence on imported fossil fuels and the global rush for alternative energy sources, the Ethiopian government, not surprisingly, gave emphasis to investment in biofuel development, mainly through Jatropha plantation. However, after costly experimentation, the "miracle crop" did not deliver what had been promised. Instead, it dispossessed and displaced thousands of marginalized local smallholder agropastoralists, created conflict over water and land resources, and kept thousands of hectares of land out of production. In the end, the rhetoric of "Jatropha revolution" and promises of local and national development were never materialized; the government's ambitious biofuel strategy also failed to achieve its objectives. The main argument of this paper is that the failure of large-scale biofuel companies to fulfill their ambitious promises in Ethiopia is part of the general failure in the governance of large-scale commercial agriculture and misleading views toward, and unrealistic promises of, Jatropha investments. These negatively affected the livelihood of the local agropastoralists and their interactions with the companies, which caused instabilities and conflicts in the area. It is hoped that the findings of this research will contribute to knowledge production and policies on the governance of large-scale commercial agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Livelihoods are activities and practices in which social and environmental factors interlink, and they play a key role in achieving human well-being and environmental conservation. Livelihood analyses are therefore important to social-ecological systems research. With a few exceptions, however, the concept of agency has been largely missing in research applying the social-ecological systems approach. This is an important gap to address, because humans are not passive victims of broader sociopolitical trends and environmental changes, but rather play causative roles that shape history. This paper presents a conceptual framework that enables the explicit integration of agency into livelihood analyses, and is useful for examining the extent to which livelihoods enable people to be agents of their own well-being, and stewards of their environment. The framework has four pillars of agency: preconditions (referring to capital assets and resources, or CARs); processes (feedbacks and dynamics); power (the social and political fabrics, and relations in which livelihoods are embedded); and possibilities (the extent to which a present livelihood expands into future options, and builds the ability to act on options). The framework is then applied to a case study analyzing smallholder farming livelihoods and food security in southwest Ethiopia. The case study is based on empirical work involving quantitative survey, in-depth interviews, and focus-group discussions. This paper demonstrates the applicability of the framework to identifying agency constraints in smallholder farming, and helps determine areas where agency can be further strengthened. Beyond the case study, the framework may also be applied in other contexts and to other livelihood types. Its application can strengthen the contribution of livelihood analysis to social-ecological systems research by providing a way to operationalize and foreground agency.

Our aim with this paper is to present a novel approach for developing story lines and scenarios by combining qualitative knowledge and quantitative data from different disciplines and discussing the results with relevant decision makers. This research strategy offers a solid foundation for perspectives into the future. The "laboratory" is the Brazilian Amazon, one of the hotspots of land-use change where local and global interests both collide and converge: local livelihoods are affected by regional and global climate change and by the loss of biodiversity caused by local and global economic interests in agro-industrial land use; such use contributes, in turn, to climate change. After decades of diverse policy interventions the question arises: What can we learn from past trajectories for a more sustainable development in the future? To answer this question, we combined qualitative story lines for the region, reviewed by local experts, with quantitative land-use scenarios, to study their regional and local manifestations in space. These results were then discussed again with local and national experts. Our findings suggest that in-depth knowledge of the diverging perspectives at a very local level is a fundamental prerequisite for downscaling global scenarios and upscaling local approaches to sustainable land-use management and thus, to producing communicable and applicable results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservation science addresses the complementary goals of preventing future biodiversity loss while sustaining critical human foundations. In this paper we use two case studies focused on land management to discuss how private lands conservation can be more effective by considering how planning and decision making reflects a coupled human and natural system (CHANS). The first case study focuses on conservation easements in the temperate forests of eastern United States; the second focuses on conservation opportunities in Midwestern agroecosystems, in particular the value of agroforestry. For each case study we discuss the natural and human subsystems, how elements and interactions within and between subsystems (as organized by elements of CHANS) create challenges and opportunities for conservation, and the importance of considering relevant scales of subsystems. Review of these case studies demonstrates that additional insight gained by using a CHANS perspective, particularly given how the subsystems interact at different scales, improves identification of important points of social and ecological overlap, ultimately enhancing conservation research, planning, and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The semiarid Mahafaly region in southwestern Madagascar is not only a unique biodiversity hotspot, but also one of the poorest regions in the world. Crop failures occur frequently, and despite a great number of rural development programs, no effective progress in terms of improved yields, agricultural income, or well-being among farming households has been observed. In addition to the severe development challenges in the region, environmental degradation and the loss of biodiversity are prevailing issues. This paper takes a social-ecological systems perspective to analyze why the region appears locked in poverty. Specifically, we address the social-ecological interaction between environmental factors such as low and variable precipitation, the lack of sustainable intensification in agriculture resulting in recalcitrant hunger, and several environmental degradation trends. The study is based on (i) longitudinal data from 150 farming households interviewed at high temporal resolution during the course of 2014, and (ii) extensive recall surveys from the southwestern Madagascar project region. The analysis reveals a complex interplay of pronounced seasonality in income generation due to recurrent droughts and crop failures making local farmers highly risk averse. This interplay results in a gradual depletion of environmental assets and hinders the accumulation of capital in the hands of smallholder farmers, and improvements in agricultural production even where environmental conditions would allow for it. As a result, households are insufficiently buffered and insured against repetitive income and food security shocks. This can be understood as a set of interacting, partly nested social-ecological traps, which entrench the Mahafalian smallholder population in deep poverty while the productivity of the environment declines. We provide new insights on the interplay between hunger, poverty, and loss of environmental assets in a global biodiversity hotspot. Finally, we propose a set of key issues that need to be considered to unlock this severe lock-in and enable transformation toward a more sustainable development in southwestern Madagascar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our aim with this paper is to present a novel approach for developing story lines and scenarios by combining qualitative knowledge and quantitative data from different disciplines and discussing the results with relevant decision makers. This research strategy offers a solid foundation for perspectives into the future. The "laboratory" is the Brazilian Amazon, one of the hotspots of land-use change where local and global interests both collide and converge: local livelihoods are affected by regional and global climate change and by the loss of biodiversity caused by local and global economic interests in agro-industrial land use; such use contributes, in turn, to climate change. After decades of diverse policy interventions the question arises: What can we learn from past trajectories for a more sustainable development in the future? To answer this question, we combined qualitative story lines for the region, reviewed by local experts, with quantitative land-use scenarios, to study their regional and local manifestations in space. These results were then discussed again with local and national experts. Our findings suggest that in-depth knowledge of the diverging perspectives at a very local level is a fundamental prerequisite for downscaling global scenarios and upscaling local approaches to sustainable land-use management and thus, to producing communicable and applicable results.

Conservation science addresses the complementary goals of preventing future biodiversity loss while sustaining critical human foundations. In this paper we use two case studies focused on land management to discuss how private lands conservation can be more effective by considering how planning and decision making reflects a coupled human and natural system (CHANS). The first case study focuses on conservation easements in the temperate forests of eastern United States; the second focuses on conservation opportunities in Midwestern agroecosystems, in particular the value of agroforestry. For each case study we discuss the natural and human subsystems, how elements and interactions within and between subsystems (as organized by elements of CHANS) create challenges and opportunities for conservation, and the importance of considering relevant scales of subsystems. Review of these case studies demonstrates that additional insight gained by using a CHANS perspective, particularly given how the subsystems interact at different scales, improves identification of important points of social and ecological overlap, ultimately enhancing conservation research, planning, and practice.