Christopher B. Anderson’s research while affiliated with National University of Tierra del Fuego and other places

In a recent speech to the UN General Assembly, Argentine President Javier Milei rejected the Pact for the Future and the 2030 Agenda, a comprehensive global framework for sustainable development encompassing ‘people, planet, and prosperity.’ This position undermines Argentina’s capacity to tackle urgent socio-environmental challenges like poverty, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and wildfires. By walking away from this international initiative, Argentina risks isolation and exacerbating these interconnected crises.

Scientists and managers seek to implement more inclusive and effective conservation strategies by incorporating plural valuations of nature and nature’s contributions to people (NCP) into research and decision-making. For Argentina’s threatened Espinal ecoregion, this need is particularly acute. In Entre Ríos province, practically all of these forests are devoted to production, and the expanding agricultural frontier increases their conversion to crops. We surveyed family ranchers and agricultural/environmental specialists, two key stakeholders for managing Espinal forests used for cattle grazing. Employing a sociocultural valuation, we determined i) stakeholder recognition of the Espinal’s NCP and its support for quality of life, ii) similarity between stakeholder valuations (importance: 0 = none; 4 = very) of NCP and dimensions of well-being derived from the Espinal, and iii) relationship between ecological (e.g., forest degradation) and social (e.g., place of residence) factors and perceptions of the forest. Ranchers recognized more NCP and quality-of-life aspects, and the importance to their well-being tended to be greater than specialists. Both groups valued regulating and non-material NCP above material contributions and considered that forests are very important for physical and mental health. Finally, only rancher perceptions varied with tested variables, depending on degradation levels of forests with which they have the most contact and/or carry out their activities, the number of uses and recreational activities they carry out in forests, their knowledge of forests, and their place of residence. This study illustrates common ground upon which to promote synergies between production and conservation in Espinal-cattle agroecosystems.

Purpose Universities strategically organize themselves around sustainability, including transformative goals in teaching and learning. Simultaneously, the role of online education has become more prominent. This study aims to better understand the purpose and process of creating online sustainability education (OSE) and to identify challenges and opportunities for implementing these courses and programs to achieve universities’ broader transformative sustainability goals. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a multiple case study design to research three universities in diverse geographical and institutional contexts (Finland, the USA and Colombia). Qualitative data was collected by interviewing program-related experts (n = 31) and reviews of universities’ strategic documents. Findings The findings suggest that despite important advances, further attention is merited regarding aligning the purpose of OSE with student learning outcomes, clarifying the values underlying the process of online program/course creation and developing transformative and process-oriented approaches and pedagogies to implement OSE. The authors also highlight emerging challenges and opportunities in online environments for sustainability education in different institutional contexts, including reaping the benefits of multilocality and diverse student experiences regarding sustainability issues. Originality/value There is a paucity of studies on university-level sustainability education in relation to online environments. This research expands on the existing literature by exploring three different geographical and institutional contexts and shedding light on the relationship between the practical implementation of OSE and universities’ broader sustainability goals.

In Tucumán, environmental scientists and authorities have long considered river pollution caused by the sugar industry to be a priority issue for research and management. However, little is known about how local communities perceive and relate to this issue and these environments. To obtain a more comprehensive understanding, we conducted 401 surveys in four localities to investigate the social perceptions of rivers affected by the sugar industry, utilizing the Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework to structure this sociocultural assessment. There was a broad recognition of rivers’ importance by 87% of respondents, but 44% reported that they do not visit them, reflecting a disconnect with these environments. Additionally, the community conceives rivers in “good condition” (state) based mostly on aesthetic aspects of the water, rather than health or ecosystem considerations. Overall, rivers were perceived negatively; problems (drivers, pressures) were perceived more than contributions (impacts). Although most (56%) respondents identified sugar industry pollution as “very important,” it ranked third, after other environmental and social pressures. Contributions of rivers that impact people’s well-being were valued lower, and only construction materials, water for animals, recreational spaces, and food were considered “somewhat important.” The majority (> 65%) did not identify rivers as important for energy generation or drinking water. Finally, 42% of the community was unaware of existing environmental public policies aimed at addressing river degradation. These social perceptions of Tucumán’s rivers and their management reveal both similarities and differences between expert-driven, ecological knowledge and society’s relationships with these rivers.

Las cuencas hidrográficas del archipiélago fueguino albergan los bosques más australes del mundo y constituyen un mosaico complejo de ambientes. Pese a ser considerada una ecorregión prístina, los ecosistemas de la Patagonia Austral enfrentan perturbaciones múltiples; entre ellas, el manejo forestal. El 80% de la actividad forestal de la provincia de Tierra del Fuego se concentra en el centro de la región cordillerana, incluyendo áreas de bosque de Nothofagus pumilio. El objetivo de este estudio es entender la relación entre los arroyos fueguinos y el aprovechamiento forestal. Se eligieron arroyos en cuencas con (n=5) y sin (n=4) manejo forestal para investigar los efectos del aprovechamiento sobre las condiciones abióticas y los recursos basales del hábitat de los arroyos. Los nueve arroyos se estudiaron en verano, otoño y primavera. En general, nuestros resultados revelaron que los arroyos de cabecera que atraviesan los bosques subantárticos fueguinos están muy dominados por un régimen estacional. Ejemplos de esto fueron el caudal y la comunidad epilítica. Sin embargo, a pesar de mantenerse una franja de bosque ribereño en zonas de aprovechamiento, establecido por ley, la actividad forestal afectó las condiciones generales de la cuenca. En particular, se observa un aumento de nutrientes en cuencas con manejo forestal y una dinámica diferencial de la materia orgánica bentónica. Nuestro trabajo aporta información sobre la dinámica y la variación natural de los arroyos fueguinos. Además, en cuanto al efecto del manejo forestal, evidencia la necesidad de un monitoreo que contemple las características de la ribera (ancho y estructura vegetal), la antigüedad del evento de tala y el tipo de manejo forestal aplicado en la cuenca. Las medidas de conservación de los ambientes fluviales deben contemplar tanto el ambiente acuático como la integridad de la cuenca.

In this article, we present results from a literature review of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values of nature conducted for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, as part of the Methodological Assessment of the Diverse Values and Valuations of Nature. We identify the most frequently recurring meanings in the heterogeneous use of different value types and their association with worldviews and other key concepts. From frequent uses, we determine a core meaning for each value type, which is sufficiently inclusive to serve as an umbrella over different understandings in the literature and specific enough to help highlight its difference from the other types of values. Finally, we discuss convergences, overlapping areas, and fuzzy boundaries between different value types to facilitate dialogue, reduce misunderstandings, and improve the methods for valuation of nature's contributions to people, including ecosystem services, to inform policy and direct future research.

Even regions of the planet widely considered to be “remote” or “pristine” like Patagonia are actually dynamic social-ecological systems with interrelated local-international connections of discourses, practices, and institutions. Yet, their study and management often do not consider this complexity. In Argentine Patagonia’s iconic landscapes, protected areas (PAs) represent a major human-nature relationship, and PA creation has been motivated by objectives ranging from geopolitical interests to biodiversityconservation. In this chapter, we employed the social imaginary framework to conduct an historical analysis of local, national, and international influences regarding the way nature and tourism are conceived and managed in national PAs. We evaluated the discourses (ideals, values, beliefs) and institutions (norms, rules, structures, stakeholders) involved in creating these PAs in Argentine Patagonia. The national PA system was legally formed in the 1930s, but initial efforts reach back as far as the early 1900s. We found that while the globalization of Patagonian conservation-based development has consolidated since the 1980s, local-international relationships extended over more than a century to co-produce these social-ecological systems.