Publications

Erik Zhivkoplias, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Paul Dunshirn, Agnes Pranindita, Robert Blasiak. 2024. Growing prominence of deep-sea life in marine bioprospecting. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01392-w

Marine bioprospecting, which involves the exploration of genetic and biochemical material from marine organisms, can be used towards addressing a broad range of public and environmental health applications such as disease treatment, diagnostics and bioremediation. Marine genetic resources are important reservoirs for such bioprospecting efforts; however, the extent to which they are used commercially for natural product discov...

Azucena Castro, Alejandro Ponce de León, Ana Laura Cantera, Veronica Olofsson, Juan David Reina-Rozo. 2024. Energy sovereignty storytelling: Art practices, community-led transitions, and territorial futures in Latin America. Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2024.2309046

In this article, we study forms of storytelling about energy sovereignty retrieved from community-based art and their implications for energy justice formulations in Latin America. Based on the visual and discursive analysis of five contemporary Latin American artistic practices, the article shows that their poetic and political engagements with energy production, consumption, and distribution build what we call “energy sovere...

Veronica Olofsson, Azucena Castro. 2024. Unjust Winds of Change: The Politics and Narratives of Wind Farms in the Brazilian Northeast. Iberoamericana – Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. https://doi.org/10.16993/iberoamericana.638

Renewable energy is recognized as a cornerstone in achieving sustainable development globally, evidenced by international standards such as the UN Agenda 2030 as well as in nations energy policies globally. One of the front runners of the energy transition globally is Brazil, where wind energy has expanded substantially since the early 2000’s. Currently, the state of Bahia in North-Eastern Brazil is seeing the fastest expansio...

Laura M. Pereira, Ignacio Gianelli, Therezah Achieng, Diva Amon, Sally Archibald, Suchinta Arif, Azucena Castro, Tapiwa Prosper Chimbadzwa, Kaera Coetzer, Tracy-Lynn Field, Odirilwe Selomane, Nadia Sitas, Nicola Stevens, Sebastian Villasante, Mohammed Armani, Duncan M. Kimuyu, Ibukun J. Adewumi, David M. Lapola, David Obura, Patricia Pinho, Felipe Roa-Clavijo, Juan Rocha, U. Rashid Sumaila. 2024. Equity and justice should underpin the discourse on tipping points. Earth System Dynamics. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-15-341-2024

Radical and quick transformations towards sustainability will be fundamental to achieving a more sustainable future. However, deliberate interventions to reconfigure systems will result in winners and losers, with the potential for greater or lesser equity and justice outcomes. Positive tipping points (PTPs) have been proposed as interventions in complex systems with the aim to (a) reduce the likelihood of negative Earth syste...

Verónica Hollman, Azucena Castro. 2024. Reclaiming Energy Flows: Energy GeoHumanities and the Socio-Ecologies of Rivers in Latin American Hydro-Modernities. GeoHumanities. https://doi.org/10.1080/2373566X.2024.2302115

This article explores fluvial forms of art and activism to reclaim new meanings of energy at a time when questions about the energy transition are central in geography studies and global environmental discourses. Departing from Serpent River Book by Carolina Caycedo, we propose affective, embodied, and creative entanglements to understand energy flows in river ecologies in Latin America for an exploration of energy geohuman...

Kinga Psiuk, Johan Enqvist. 2024. Control or coexist with urban baboons: Exploring residents' views and values in Cape Town. Conservation Science and Practice. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.13203

Humans and wildlife increasingly share urban space, which elevates the risk of negative interactions. Management efforts conventionally focus on controlling species that are considered problematic, but polarization in affected communities' perceptions and values may pose a greater problem for management in cities where ideas about preferred human–wildlife interactions vary greatly. This study uses Q-method to investigate what ...

Michele-Lee Moore, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Örjan Bodin, Johan Enqvist, Fernando Jaramillo, Krisztina Jónás, Carl Folke, Patrick Keys, Steven J. Lade, Maria Mancilla Garcia, Romina Martin, Nathanial Matthews, Agnes Pranindita, Juan C. Rocha, Shuchi Vora. 2024. Moving from fit to fitness for governing water in the Anthropocene. Nature Water. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00257-y

We bring together two decades of research on cross-scale spatial and temporal connectivity of water in the Anthropocene to understand the implications for institutional fit and water governance, with a focus on river basin organizations and watershed-based bodies. There is strong evidence showing how hydrological cycles are tightly coupled across larger spatial scales than they were in the past, which implies a possible expans...

Jenny Willis, Bruno Losch, Laura M. Pereira. 2024. NUS so fast: the social and ecological implications of a rapidly developing indigenous food economy in the Cape Town area. Sustainability Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-024-01528-z

The modern global food system is highly unsustainable, shaped by industrialisation and corporate consolidation, with negative repercussions on the environment and biodiversity as well as human health. This paper looks at the burgeoning economy in neglected and underutilised species (NUS) in the Western Cape, South Africa, as a potential innovation that could make the local food system more socially and ecologically resilient. ...

Hadisu Bello Abubakar. 2024. Evaluation of high-resolution precipitation datasets CHIRPS, TerraClimate and TAMSAT over the Enkangala Escarpment of South Africa. Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4365508/v1

This study evaluates the performance three high resolution rainfall products (CHIRPS, TerraClimate and TAMSAT) with reference to ground rain observations network of 25 weather stations data over Enkangala Escarpment of South Africa, for the period of 40 years. We used continuous, categorical, and volumetric indices, and at various elevations, and temporal scales (monthly, seasonal, and annual). CHIRPS have shown the best stati...

Kajsa Resare Sahlin, Line J. Gordon, Regina Lindborg, Johannes Piipponen, Pierre Van Rysselberge, Julia Rouet-Leduc, Elin Röös. 2024. An exploration of biodiversity limits to grazing ruminant milk and meat production. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01398-4

The production and consumption of animal-source foods must be transformed to mitigate negative environmental outcomes, including greenhouse gas emissions and land-use change. However, livestock are also key for food production and for livelihoods in some settings, and they can help preserve biodiversity and certain ecosystems. Previous studies have not yet fully explored sustainability limits to the use of grazing lands for fo...