Publications

Radosavljevic, S., Banitz, T., Grimm, V., Johansson, L.-G., Lindkvist, E., Schlüter, M., Ylikoski, P.. 2023. Dynamical systems modeling for structural understanding of social-ecological systems: A primer. Ecological Complexity. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecocom.2023.101052

Dynamical systems modeling (DSM) explores how a system evolves in time when its elements and the relationships between them are known. The basic idea is that the structure of a dynamical system, expressed by coupled differential or difference equations, determines attractors of the system and, in turn, its behavior. This leads to structural understanding that can provide insights into qualitative properties of real systems, in...

Jan J. Kuiper. 2023. A plea for more freshwater experts in IPBES. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems. https://doi.org/10.1002/aqc.3956

Biodiversity loss occurs much faster in the world's freshwaters than in the terrestrial or marine realms, yet worries have been expressed that freshwater systems are not given the same priority as ‘land and oceans’ in global environmental governance. The Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is mandated to provide the knowledge basis supporting international environmental agr...

Jan Jurjen Kuiper, Liam Carpenter-Urquhart, Marta Berbés-Blázquez, Elisa Oteros Rozas, Linna Fredström, Kinga Psiuk, Codruța Savu, Robert Kautsky, Anne Guerry, Stephen R. Carpenter, Charlyn Green, Megan Meacham, Roy Paco Remme, Federica Ravera, Franziska Wankmüller, Katie K. Arkema, Laura M. Pereira, Garry Peterson. 2023. Biosphere Futures: a database of social-ecological scenarios. OSF. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/v4ukj

Biosphere Futures (biospherefutures.net) is a new online database to collect and discover scenario studies from across the world, with a specific focus on scenarios that explicitly incorporate interdependencies between humans and their supporting ecosystems. It provides access to a globally diverse collection of case studies that includes most ecosystems and regions, enabling exploration of the multifaceted ways in which the f...

Ashanapuri Hertz, Alexandra Masako Goossens-Ishii, Niak Sian Koh. 2023. Adopting a human rights-based approach to biodiversity and climate action. SwedBio.

Niak Sian Koh. 2023. Governments and environmental groups are turning to international courts to address the impacts of climate change — podcast. The Conversation.

In an effort to make sure countries and corporations follow existing laws and agreements relating to climate change and environmental protection, groups have started pushing for legal action at the international scale. Research shows that the current climate agreements won’t stave off the worst harms of climate change — and many countries are failing to meet their own commitments. A number of activist groups, mostly from devel...

Niak Sian Koh. 2023. Improving the effectiveness of international environmental agreements - Lessons from human rights law. ESEE European Society for Ecolocial Economics. Economics for Rebels podcast.

Various global initiatives have emerged to try to address the degradation of the living world, but despite decades of implementation we’ve had limited success at changing that trajectory. Why? Dr Niak Koh is a sustainability scientist based at the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University. In some of her recent work, Niak has focused on what biodiversity agreements can learn from the implementation of international h...

Pietarinen N., Koh N.S., Ville, Alizee, Brockhaus, M, Wong, G. 2023. Can REDD+ finance compete with established and emerging land investments? The case of Mai-Ndombe, Democratic Republic of Congo. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.4766035

Climate finance is often considered an avenue of transformational change to address deforestation. However, financial dynamics influencing forests extend beyond climate-related initiatives; forest landscapes are subject to a myriad of actors and pre-existing interests. Local communities, with their interests and land-use practices, are often lost within the politics of business-as-usual. This paper examines if and how REDD+ fi...

Amos Ochieng, NiakSian Koh, Stasja Koot. 2023. Compatible with Conviviality? Exploring African Ecotourism and Sport Hunting for Transformative Conservation. Conservation and Society. https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_42_21

Recent decades have shown the increased popularity of market-based instruments (MBIs) for conservation despite mixed social and ecological outcomes. This paper explores the extent to which two crucial MBIs, namely, ecotourism and sport hunting, are compatible with 'convivial conservation', a novel, integrated approach that explores conservation beyond capitalism. We developed an analytical framework of five key features for tr...

Robert Blasiak, Jean-Baptiste Jouffray, Albert Norström, Cibele Queiroz, Colette CC Wabnitz, Henrik Österblom. 2023. The Ocean Decade as an instrument of peace. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2023.101319

The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021–2030 (the ‘Ocean Decade’) is poised to stimulate new cooperation for ocean science, but makes no mention of conflict or peace. We contend that this is a missed opportunity, and use an environmental peacebuilding typology to review how ocean science has historically contributed to peace. Such considerations are timely in the context of an increasingly c...

Johannah Bernstein, David Collste, Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Nathalie Spittler. 2023. SDGs for All: Strategic Scenarios. Earth4All System Dynamics Modelling of SDG Progress. The Foundation for European Progressive Studies and Earth4All.

The report examines SDG progress in the light of Earth4All’s five extraordinary turnarounds – poverty, inequality, empowerment, food and energy – and against the scenarios that lie at the core of the Earth4All model: Too Little Too Late, where societies maintain the types of economic policies that have been in place for decades, and the Giant Leap, a scenario where societies make ambitious decisions and investments today which...