Air pollution associated with agricultural activities and land-cover change poses significant health problems in developing countries. However, studies on the respiratory health impacts of these activities are scarce. Sumatra, Indonesia, is a region well known for its frequent land fires and haze. Here, we link data on healthcare attendances for respiratory illnesses between 2001 and…

Ecosystem restoration conventionally focuses on ecological targets. However, while ecological targets are crucial to mobilizing political, social, and financial capital, they do not encapsulate the need to: integrate social, economic, and ecological dimensions and systems approaches; reconcile global targets and local objectives; and measure the rate of progress toward multiple and synergistic goals. Restoration is…

Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs) are a key regulatory mechanism for protecting Antarctic environmental values. Previous evaluations of the effectiveness of the ASPA system have focused on its representativeness and design characteristics, presenting a compelling rationale for its systematic revision. However, while upgrading the system could increase the representation of values within ASPAs, representation alone…

The loss and degradation of nature can lead to hopelessness and despair, which may undermine engagement in conservation actions. Emerging movements, such as that behind the organization Conservation Optimism, aim to avert potential despair of those involved in conservation. Some argue that fostering positive states, such as hope or optimism, can motivate engagement and action;…

Forest restoration has been proposed as a scalable nature-based solution to achieve global environmental and socio-economic outcomes and is central to many policy initiatives, such as the Bonn Challenge. Restored forests contain appreciable biodiversity, improve habitat connectivity and sequester carbon. Incentive mechanisms (e.g. payments for ecosystem services and allocationof management rights) have been a focus…

Mangrove forests store high amounts of carbon, protect communities from storms, and support fisheries. Mangroves exist in complex social-ecological systems, hence identifying socioeconomic conditions associated with decreasing losses and increasing gains remains challenging albeit important. The impact of national governance and conservation policies on mangrove conservation at the landscape-scale has not been assessed to date,…

Natural area managers face difficult decisions about how much money to allocate to what restoration actions and to ensure that public expenditure on land restoration is cost effective, efficient and transparent. In our study, published in Ecological Applications, we develop a ‘roadmap’ for investment in land restoration. Our approach explicitly considers space, time and their…

Our study led by Dr Angela Dean found that most Australians are not making a connection between climate change and reef health. We conducted an online survey of 4,285 Australians  asking “…what types of actions could people like you do that would be helpful for the GBR?”. We found that only 4.1% mentioned a specific…

Oil palm agriculture is promoted as a way to improve living standards in tropical countries, but has led to mixed outcomes for local communities. We evaluated impacts across Indonesia, and asked whether poverty had been improved via the leading sustainability certfication scheme. As the World’s most commonly produced vegetable oil, palm oil has attracted its…

Participatory approaches to forest management have been promoted as a means of returning resource use rights to communities and enabling sustainable use and equitable management of forests. Community-based forest management (CFM) is a participatory approach often heralded in the literature as achieving win-win social and ecological outcomes. However, even participatory approaches may not always result…