News

What sustainable mountain future do we want? And how do we get to a desired sustainable mountain future? The journal Mountain Research and Development (MRD) invites papers that focus on either one of these questions. Topics can range widely, and submissions are welcome anytime.

A new paper in Ecological Economics estimates the impacts of countries' agricultural systems on biodiversity, using bird counts in an area where Switzerland, Germany, and France come together.

A new paper in BioScience outline how social processes that are critical to restoration equity and effectiveness can be better incorporated in restoration science and policy. 

Twenty-five grants of $3000 each are available to researchers from/based in the ‘Global South’ who have undertaken original empirical research and wish to write this up. Deadline: 31 May 2023.

A new paper in Global Environmental Change uses case studies across the Mekong Region, a place which serves as a harbinger for crop booms globally, to propose a new analytical framework for understanding and governing crop booms. 

A new paper in Conservation draws from over 70 local interviews with stakeholders in Brazil to assess the role that relational values can play as a “deep” leverage point for a land-use transition in the Amazon.

A new article in the Journal of Environmental Management took Nanjing County of China as an example and found great suitability of harmonized Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 images to distinguish multiple trajectories of cropland abandonment in subtropical mountainous areas.

The current and previous coordinators of the joint GLP/AIMES Behavioural Models of Land Systems Working Group recently contributed a piece to the new AIMES Bulletin that outlines the group's work to support efforts to develop behavioural models of human activity within land systems and to couple them with other models through improved understanding of the processes underlying human-environment interactions.

The GLP/AIMES BeModeLS: Behavioural Models of Land Systems Working Group held a webinar on 16 February 2023 to help shape the group's aims and activities.  Watch the recording to learn more about what was discussed and next steps.

This Special Issue of Land aims to collate contributions on recent advances in the application of land use scenario tools in exploring future land use and land cover change trajectories at different scales and foci with innovative and transformative adaptation pathways. Deadline for submissions: 29 June 2023

A special issue of Forests aims to congregate the notable research for addressing the diverse issues of forestry practices developed for improving human well-being and meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Deadline: 12 April 2023

A new paper in Ecological Indicators highlights the importance of low herbivore livestock densities to halt the loss of pollinating insects and safeguard biodiversity and associated ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes.

The editors of a new special issue of Land Degradation & Development invite papers that report the current status of microplastics pollution in terrestrial ecosystems, understand the impact of microplastics on soil properties, functions, biology and biochemistry, develop innovative strategies for remediation and restoration of microplastics contaminated lands. Deadline: 30 June 2023

A special issue of Land Degradation & Development will showcase the emerging crop-diversification patterns across the globe for increasing land productivity, agrobiodiversity, and food and nutrition security, while reducing ecological footprints. Deadline: 31 October 2023

A new article in People and Nature that grew out of discussions at GLP's 2019 Open Science Meeting in Bern looks at what happens after shifting cultivation and finds eight transitions with varied consequences for people and nature.

Editors of a new special issue "Land Cover and Land Use Change in Conflicted Societies" in the journal Science of Remote Sensing invite GLP Members and their colleagues to submit papers focusing on changes in agriculture, forest, grassland, urban environments, as well as population displacement in the regions that experienced armed conflicts and political instability. Papers on conflict-induced LCLUC with a direct or indirect link to climate change are also welcome. Deadline: 31 August 2023

The workshop from 7-9 June 2023 in Sweden and online will strengthen the network of researchers using the archetypes approach in sustainability research.

The Global South Climate Database is a publicly available, searchable database of scientists and experts in the fields of climate science, climate policy and energy. The goal of the project, set up by Carbon Brief with the support of the Reuters Institute's Oxford Climate Journalism Network, is to ensure that journalists from all over the world can contact scientists from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific.

A new paper in Environmental Research Letters synthesises the state of knowledge on interaction or nexus archetypes related to land, biodiversity, food and climate based on a systematic literature review. It focusses on the coverage of thematic aspects, regional distribution, social dimensions and methodologies. 

A new paper in Ecology & Society emphasizes the importance of the localized distribution of social and environmental costs and benefits within broader-scale land-use regime shifts.

Clarivate Analytics, the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to enable researchers to accelerate discovery, published its annual Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) list for 2022 with 31 GLP Members, SSC Members, and GLP Fellows on it.

A new Special Issue Collection in the journal Ambio welcomes contributions (particularly from African and Asian countries). Deadline for submissions: 1 August 2023.

The ECEM 2023, which will take place 4-8 September 2023 in Leipzig, Germany, invites the submission of proposals for sessions and workshops. Deadline: 10 January 2023.

A new article in Environmental Research Letters found that while many RSPO certified growers make real changes to achieve certification, these changes do not always address core sectoral performance concerns. 

A new article in Environmental Research Letters leverages timeseries of spatially explicit corporate commodity sourcing data and ZDCs to assess the current and potential effect of ZDCs within soybean supply chains on forest loss and biodiversity. 

The Earthshot Institute, a non-profit organization that brings together people across disciplinary and institutional boundaries to collaborate on scientific research that will catalyze ecological regeneration, is launching a global review of regenerative forestry practices on November 10.

A new paper in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change innovatively applies transitions theory to the problem of land-use change and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.

GLP Executive Officer Ariane de Bremond presented the PNAS paper and companion report on “Ten Facts about Land Systems for Sustainability” to the Future Earth Open Science Conference in Paris, France, on September 21, 2022. The paper was co-authored by 50 leading land use scientists from 20 countries, and the companion report offers specific examples to help policymakers and the public understand what’s at stake.

The newest issue of Mountain Research and Development is now available. This focus issue illuminates the dynamic and complex interconnections between hazards, underlying vulnerabilities, integrated disaster risk management, and resulting impacts in mountains.

This series of sessions at the 2023 AAG Annual Meeting aims to bring together researchers and practitioners focused on rural-urban linkages and their implications for multi-dimensional inequalities, food systems, land-use change, human well-being, or multi-scale socio-environmental governance in the context of climate change. Deadline: 28 October

A new paper in Environmental Research Letters uses a novel household dataset and a quasi-experimental design to estimate household-level changes in agricultural productivity and other LSLA outcomes in Tanzania.

ESA has kicked off a new Vegetation Parameters project that will develop multi-mission satellite data records of Leaf Area Index and fAPAR to understand vegetation state and dynamics, and they are looking for user input.

A new paper in Ecology & Society shows a novel combination for visualizing the routes and reasons for migration in West Africa, among others.

A new publication in One Earth in collaboration with the Bern University of Applied Sciences and Fairtrade International anticipates potential impacts of climate extremes on Fairtrade producers of banana, cocoa, coffee and tea.

Deadline extended to 25 August! The Bureau of the Committee on Science and Technology, the UNCCD subsidiary body established to provide information and advice on scientific and technological matters relating to combating desertification and mitigating the effects of drought, has opened a call for new independent scientist members to its Science-Policy Interface (SPI).

A new paper in Society & Natural Resources asks: What if the unintended misuse of the landscape concept by researchers and, consequently, by practitioners, in cultures where there is no such notion or univocal idea, were an obstacle for managing natural resources sustainably and achieving well-being of humans and nonhumans?

Please consider submitting an abstract to the American Geophysical Union conference session 'GC054 - Linkages across climate, hydrologic, and agricultural systems.' AGU will be held in Chicago and virtually from Dec 12-16, 2022. Deadline to submit an abstract: 3 August 2022

A new paper in Environmental Research Letters assesses how much savanna area had changed over the 3 decades (area loss, fragmentation), and of this how much was due to direct human intervention versus vegetation transition. 

This special issue of One Earth welcomes quantitative studies focusing on innovative approaches for sustainable water resources management, considering the framework of the WEFE Nexus. Deadline: 1 November 2022 

A new article in Environmental Research Letters anticipates tree plantation expansion will continue to drive deforestation in SE Asia, and argues significantly heightened protection is needed to secure the long-term preservation of high and medium-integrity forest, especially in highly contested forest frontier regions.

Mountain Research and Development is looking for papers that systematically assess restoration experiences, including enabling and hindering factors for greater resilience of mountain ecosystems and people. Empirical research and meta-analyses of degradation and restoration processes and their links to resilience are also welcome, as are review-based agendas for research, policies, or interventions. Papers are due by 1 November 2022.

The IYBSSD 2022 will focus on the links between basic sciences and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. All proposals should address international cooperation in Earth and space sciences and highlight the importance of basic science for sustainable development. Deadline for project proposal submission: 31 July 2022

The Pathways Communication Grants Program of Future Earth seeks to ensure that scientific contributions supporting the development of pathways for sustainability reach relevant audiences beyond the scientific community. Deadline: 30 September 2022

A session proposal “Telecoupling: Interdisciplinary Frontier in Convergence Science” has been approved at the upcoming conference of AGU (American Geophysical Union) during December 12-16, 2022. Deadline: 3 August 2022

In 2022, fifty years on from the UN Summit, the International Science Council, Future Earth and the Stockholm Environment Institute convened an Expert Writing Group of natural scientists, social scientists and humanities scholars to modernize and extend the historical call of the Menton Message of 1972 on the eve of Stockholm+50. Read and share the letter...

A new paper in Ecology and Society proposes and discusses how strategic spatial planning could play a role in governing land-use frontiers and support the socially, economically, and ecologically sustainable future of rural communities, whilst addressing broader land-use challenges in frontier contexts.

Digitalization is widely heralded for its potential contribution towards more sustainable land use systems. Still, unintended side-effects have been neglected, so far. A recently published article by Zscheischler et al. in the Journal of Cleaner Production presents perceived risks of digitalization by different stakeholder groups and highlights the role of transdisciplinary knowledge co-production for a better understanding and socially responsible handling of such complex, uncertain and ambiguous socio-technical transitions.

A new article in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability reviews three broadly adopted perspectives on urban–rural relationships from an urbanization perspective. Then, we shift the conceptualization of rural–urban relationships away from ‘the urban’ to illustrate ways in which ‘rural’ processes, practices, and places drive rural–urban sustainability. 

A new article in Ecology and Society investigates how successive waves of actors are driving land-use change in Niassa, Mozambique.

A recent article in Biological Conservation examines fake controversies produced by a small group of active Brazilian researchers that have seriously impacted environmental conservation, particularly in issues related to deforestation and climate change. 

A new paper published in Conservation argues that the bioeconomy may help conserve or restore habitats, improve knowledge on biodiversity, valorize livelihoods and increase social participation, and aid in moving beyond the commodification of nature. However, none of these achievements can be taken for granted. 

The Journal of Land Use Science dedicated their first issue of 2022 to 'Women in Land Science'. The journal is co-edited by two of GLP's SSC members, Dr. Daniel Müller and Dr. Darla Munroe, and strives to itself be a strong representation of excellence in the field as well as representation by gender.

Not Rocket Science episode in Threshold podcast  look at some models for how we can realistically meet the 1.5C goal and get to net zero by 2050.

Be surrounded by your peers and be part of a diverse and engaging group of researchers, all of whom are doing excellent research in remote sensing, and just happen to be female! Abstracts should ideally be submitted by April 29th 2022.

A new paper in the Journal of Land Use Science looks at research avenues that will promote a more socio-ecological systems perspective to the study of driving forces of landscape change.

Are you familiar with the Land Sharing – Land Sparing debate, also framed as the Half Earth and Sharing the Planet Scenario? And are you aware of the equity issues that may come with these scenario storylines? Then please respond to a questionnaire on the Perceptions of equity in biodiversity conservation and agricultural scenario narratives. Deadline: 15 March 2022

A new report released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) is a call to action for policymakers worldwide seeking to develop sustainable and equitable solutions to our most urgent global challenges. “Ten Facts about Land Systems for Sustainability” was co-authored by 50 leading land use scientists from 20 countries, convened by the Global Land Programme. A companion report offers specific examples to help policymakers and the public understand what’s at stake at this critical moment in global development.

A new paper in Environmental Research Letters investigate the linkages between the inflow of both international and internal remittances and rural households' land use in forested landscapes in the Philippines.

A new paper in the Journal of Land Use Science addresses strategic land-use planning instruments in land-use planning in tropical, low-income regions, and further details the extent to which the instruments' characteristics support land governance.

With this year’s focus topic "Racing to climate justice? Debating the multiple temporalities of just transformations", the program provides an intensive training with four seminars in two years that broaden the research competencies of early-career researchers and promote their qualification towards transdisciplinary leadership. 

There are growing calls in recent years for research on “solar geoengineering“, a set of entirely speculative technologies to reduce incoming sunlight on earth in order to limit global warming. This initiative stands against such emerging initiatives to explore planetary techno-fixes as a climate policy option.

Watch this poetic TEDxGeneva talk in which Stephen Bell brings historical insights of global farmland abandonment, zooms in to studying this process in Spain, and argues about the importance of changing the focus from post-factum abandonment to proactive retirement of lands.

A new study in Nature Food sheds light on a complex interaction of armed conflict, cropland abandonment and implications to food security in South Sudan. 

On December 2, 2021, the GLP Agricultural Land Abandonment as a Global Land-Use Change Phenomenon Working Group and GLP European Nodal Office held an introductory webinar and discussion of agricultural land abandonment as a global phenomenon. Watch the recording

A new paper in Global Change Biology seeks to understand how increases in land-use intensity became the most important driver of human appropriation of net primary production across all biomes and settings. 

A new paper in Environmental Research Letters uses Brazil as an example of how a legality criterion adopted by consumer countries is insufficient to protect forests and other ecosystems and may worsen deforestation and conversion risks by incentivizing the weakening of social-environmental protection by producer countries.

Clarivate Analytics, the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to enable researchers to accelerate discovery, published its annual Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) list this week with 32 GLP Members, SSC Members, and GLP Fellows on it.

Michigan State University’s Jianguo “Jack” Liu was honored this month with the Gunnerus Award in Sustainability Science – the first major international prize for outstanding scientific work that promotes sustainable development globally. It followed on his September receipt of the World Sustainability Award for his leadership in integrating the needs of both humans and nature and succeeding in having the work translated into policy and practice.

A new special issue of Remote Sensing is accepting full papers or communications based on your own research in this area, or may be a focused review article on some aspect of the subject. All submissions, including featured articles, will be subject to peer review. The guest editors are particularly encouraging junior and early-stage researchers to submit a manuscript to this SI call. Deadline: 31 March 2022

A new article in World Development shows how neglect is critical to imaginatively frame regions as “empty” places of possibility, excluding local actors economically from development and politically from governance initiatives.

A new paper in Agricultural Systems shows that the Crop Generator enables smart projections of future adjustments in crop rotations in view of climate and socio-economic changes as a basis for improving eco-hydrological projections and designing more sustainable agricultural systems.

Register for free to watch the 100+ engaging sessions of the 2021 Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress. SRI2021 took place from June 12-15, 2021, online and onsite in Brisbane, Australia. The Congress was the first in an annual series to unite global sustainability leaders, experts, industry and innovators to inspire action and promote a sustainability transformation. It brought together over 2,000 participants from more than 100 countries and featured 700 speakers.

What started as a discussion at the 2019 GLP OSM is now a paper in the Journal of Land Use Science! In it, the authors aim to start a discussion on how to better include culture in land system science (LSS). 

The webinar recording and presenters' slides from the GLP Telecoupling Research Towards Sustainable Transformation of Land Systems Working Group's sixth webinar are now available.

An increasing number of voices highlight the need for science itself to transform and to engage in the co-production of knowledge and action, in order to enable the fundamental transformations needed to advance towards sustainable futures. But how can global sustainability-oriented research networks engage in co-production of knowledge and action? A new article in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability introduces a strategic tool called the ‘network compass’ which highlights four generic, interrelated fields of action through which networks can strive to foster co-production. The Global Land Programme is one of the 11 networks involved in the study.

The guest editors of a special issue of Land on Amazonia invite interested authors to submit a proposal with a tentative title, abstract, and list of authors. Deadline for proposals: 15 August

A combined team of researchers from ETH Zurich, Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science and Newcastle University, has found via statistical analysis and modeling that rainfall in Europe could be increased by planting more trees. In their paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the group describes using data from rain gauges across Europe to build their models.

Davide Geneletti has received the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in recognition of his outstanding accomplishments in research in the field of environmental planning.

A new paper in Current Research in Environmental Sustainability looks at the destruction of the Amazon through a large-scale collective action lens and identifies six variables that show lack of accountability, distrust among actors, and little sense of responsibility for halting deforestation remain key stressors. 

A new paper in Sustainability Science looks at how transnational socio-ecological land systems highlight the influence of institutions under different governance regimes in defining the spatial configuration and ecological properties of regions. Land systems' asymmetries are mediated by the primary production of the ecosystems, agriculture aptitude and by contrasting perceptions and valuation of the same ecoregion across national borders. In addition, the land-use history, legacies and cultural heritage can promote land systems’ asymmetries depending on complex interactions and feedbacks of socio-ecological systems.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is pleased to announce the launch of PNAS Nexus, a highly selective, open access journal with a focus on innovation and rapid publication. PNAS Nexus will publish innovative and multi-, trans-, and interdisciplinary work across the biological, physical, and social sciences, particularly encompassing engineering and health sciences.

A new paper in Annual Reviews presents a suite of measures that collectively could be transformational to helping overcome destructive path dependencies in the region.

A new book by Mairon G. Bastos Lima details lessons from biofuel governance, policies and production strategies in the emerging world.

This special issue of Conservation Science and Practice will include papers that explore conservation philanthropy from diverse theoretical, methodological, and geographical perspectives, with explicit attention to informing conservation science and practice. Deadline for abstracts: 30 June

Nominate scientists to participate in the 2021 Future Earth – ISC Global Risks Scientists’ Perceptions survey and join a growing community of leading scientists working on global risks. Deadline to (self)nominate is 30 May 2021.

The Equator Prize 2021 will be awarded to outstanding local community and Indigenous peoples initiatives that advance innovative nature-based solutions for sustainable development. The winners will join a prestigious network of 255 leading community-based organizations from 83 countries that have been awarded the Equator Prize since 2002. 

A new Perspective piece in Nature Sustainability proposes ways for conservation science, policy and practice to deliver more effective and socially just conservation outcomes by taking a pluralistic perspective on biodiversity.

The GLP working group Telecoupling Towards Sustainable Transformation held its fifth webinar in April 2021 to discuss international trade flows in relation to land resources and ecosystem functioning.

The Ecosystem Services Partnership is investigating the uptake of ecosystem services in urban planning and seeks input from scientists/academics via a survey. 

Read an update on GLP Fellow Lin Zhen's work on "The methodology and indicator system for assessing ecological restoration technologies and evaluation of global ecosystem rehabilitation technologies," one of China's National Key Research and Development Programs that ran from 2016 to 2020.

The webinar recording, presentations and additional materials for the GLP Social-Ecological Land Systems of Latin America (LASELS) Working Group (LASELS)'s second webinar are now available.

This call for proposals aims to fill a gap by inviting applied and policy-relevant research that addresses the issue of sustainability in GVCs, using mainly but not exclusively quantitative analysis.

High-impact papers providing theoretical considerations and descriptions of practical case studies concerning ecosystem services and the biodiversity of peri-urban landscapes are invited for an issue of the Land journal.

The GLP working group Telecoupling Towards Sustainable Transformation held its fourth webinar in December 2020 to discuss the challenges and opportunities related to governing telecoupling from the perspective of company policies to reduce commodity-driven forest loss.

If you are interested in policy approaches on how to encourage investors to invest in brown fields, we provide a link to an online workshop in Germany to learn more.

A new paper in Land's special issue "Restoring Degraded Lands to Attain UN-SDGs" examines various challenges and plausible solutions to avoid, reduce, and reverse global land degradation as envisioned during the UN-DER, while fulfilling the objectives of other ongoing initiatives like the Bonn Challenge and the UN-SDGs

The Elinor Ostrom Award on Collective Governance of the Commons is made every two years and coincides with the IASC biennial global conferences on commons. There are three categories of the Award made to recognize the work of both practitioners and scholars of commons. Deadline: 31 March

A new paper in One Earth identifies 86 policies the EU could implement to address tropical deforestation, and shows that policy options that are politically feasible policies tend to have a weaker theory of change—the causal chain through which the policies address deforestation—setting up a trade-off between feasibility and impact (though there are exceptions, such as mandatory due diligence).

This call for papers for a special issue of Remote Sensing focuses on operationalizing tools and techniques. Deadline: 30 November 2021

The IPCC will accept applications for an IPCC Scholarship Award from PhD students that have been enrolled for at least a year or are undertaking post-doctoral research. Applicants should be citizens of a developing country with priority given to students from Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) who are not studying in their country of origin.

A special issue of Diversity aims to present an up-to-date overview of environmental sustainability and diversity in human–nature interactions from a broad and interdisciplinary perspective by bringing together conceptual, epistemological, methodological, and mainly case-based studies or applied perspectives. Deadline for manuscript submission: 5 November 2021

Announcing the Summer School "Assessing and modelling ecosystem services" from 15-19 March 2021. Open to master students from German and Ecuadorian universities. Deadline: 21 February

We are pleased to announce three new GLP Working Groups that launched at the start of 2021. They are: Agricultural Land Abandonment as a Global Land-use Change Phenomenon, Global Dryland Socio-Ecological Systems and Remittance Dynamics and Land Change. If these topics are of interest to you, please join one or more of the WGs today.

A new paper in Global Environmental Change followed a nine-step protocol to extend and enrich a set of global scenarios – the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) – providing regional and sectoral detail for European agriculture and food systems using a one-to-one nesting participatory approach. The resulting five Eur-Agri-SSPs describe alternative plausible qualitative evolutions of multiple drivers of particular importance and high uncertainty for European agriculture and food systems.

Understanding the pathways of alternative forest transition involves the integration of land science, forest succession theory and invasion ecology. Land science explains the availability of sites to be reforested. The species composition of new forests depends on the availability of propagules, dispersal agents and competitive relationships between species (forest succession theory). Invasion ecology explains the role of introduction areas (which are often associated with residential use) of exotic species in the successional process.

A new study in Applied Geography used a landscape mosaic approach to assess the changes between natural forests, shifting cultivation and permanent cultivation systems in Madagascar at the regional level from 1995 to 2011.

In this article, the researchers applied a network lens to reveal how visuals have been used in the scientific literature to portray telecoupling phenomena. Based on this, they critically reflect on current visualization practices in telecoupling research, as well as the underlying mental models that they represent. Finally, they provide practical recommendations for the development and use of visualizations to communicate knowledge on cross-scale socio-ecological interactions.

The authors of this new study used an expert participatory process to identify suitable Sustainable Land and Water Management practices in Myanmar, which can inform future development projects in rural the country.

A coherent theoretical framework to analyze multi-stakeholder partnerships as part of multi-stakeholder governance is presented based on internal conditions and the external environment. 

The webinar recording, presentations and additional materials for the GLP Social-Ecological Land Systems of Latin America (LASELS) Working Group (LASELS)'s first webinar are now available.

GLP members based in Swiss and German institutions invite submissions for the EGU 2021 ERE1.5 Session on Land use dynamics, land degradation and insights for land sustainability in agriculture and forest landscapes. Deadline: 13 January

In most countries, land inequality is growing. Worse, new measures and analysis published in a new synthesis report from the Land Inequality Initiative of the International Land Coalition shows that land inequality is significantly higher than previously reported. This trend directly threatens the livelihoods of an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide involved in smallholder agriculture. Read more and download the full report.

SESMO is launching a call for a thematic issue on large-scale behavioural models of land use change. The Thematic Issue is supported by the joint GLP/AIMES Working Group on large scale behavioural models of land use change and the Human Dimensions Focus Research Group of the CSDMS. Contributions can present theoretical or empirical analyses, methodological contributions, or relevant model developments, and will together build towards a robust agenda for future research in this field. The expected deadline for the submission of the contribution is the end of June 2021.

A new article in Geoscientific Model Development, with several GLP Members as co-authors, presents results from the Land-Use Harmonization 2 (LUH2) project, which smoothly connects updated historical reconstructions of land use with eight new future projections in the format required for Earth system models (ESMs).

A new method for predicting where cropland expansion is likely to occur in the future was published recently by several GLP Members in One Earth.

A new paper in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution seeks to synthesize insights into the drivers, processes and management of catastrophic shifts to highlight ways forward for the management of Mediterranean ecosystems.

This Focus Issue of Environmental Research Letters consolidates archetypes of sustainable land use and governance in order to provide a state-of-the-art knowledge resource to transform land use systems towards sustainability across world regions. It will advance knowledge in four thematic priority areas of land use systems: telecoupled land systems; land governance; farming systems; and interactions between land, food, climate and biodiversity. Deadline: 11 December 2020

Nine GLP Members contributed to this new book that reflects on the European debate about sustainable land management. The eBook version is open access and can be downloaded for free.

Help encourage more awareness of the SDGs and drive the necessary action towards achieving them by submitting an original story that addresses one or more global goals. Submission deadline: 25 November.

The authors found a homogenization trend of urban form. Most cities became transitional, between compact and fragmented patterns, and similar urban forms were found independently of city size and geographical location. Small to mid-sized cities were the most dynamic in expansion and urban form change.

This chapter from The Palgrave Handbook of Climate Resilient Societies presents the Alli Kawsay (Buen Vivir) and its political, cultural, and epistemic options that offer the possibility to work collectively in favor of our ‘Mother Nature.’ 

This conference will be in September 2021 in Berlin, Germany. The call is for sessions, masterclasses, and presentations of products about social science and natural science analysis on diversification in: cropping and grassland systems, farming system, landscape management systems, public and private governance systems, food systems, and cross scale systems.

A novel remote-sensing application can serve as an early-warning tool for deforestation.

Forrest Fleischman and colleagues highlight ten pitfalls of tree planting, and discuss how a focus on people who manage landscapes will work in BioScience.

Žiga Malek and Peter Verburg used a collection of studies on local land use decision-making, and studied whether they can identify how socio-economic, climatic, and soil and terrain contextual conditions influence the spatial distribution of different decision-making modes. They found out, that (to a large extent) land use decision-making can be explained by local spatial contexts.

This award of CHF 5’000 is for is for authors at Swiss universities who have published their papers in the domain of international studies whose findings are accessible to a wider audience and relevant to the work of international Organisations. Deadline is 15 October.

Papers sought for a special issue of Land Degradation & Development. Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 January 2021.

The GLP working group Telecoupling Towards Sustainable Transformation held its third webinar to discuss the progress and challenges of modelling telecoupled systems by presenting two different modelling attempts of simulating land use changes in Brazil and China through the flow of international soybean trade.

The Japanese Award for Outstanding Research on Development is a competitive research grant program under the Global Development Awards Competition 2020. This year, three winning projects on the topic, 'Unpacking the health-environment-economic wellbeing nexus' will receive grants worth US$ 45,000. Deadline: 30 September 2020

National Geographic seeks proposals that halt further biodiversity decline by implementing conservation plans for species and groups of species. Deadline: 21 October 2020

National Geographic invites proposals from proven storytellers that illuminate the policies and actions that have brought our global community to an unprecedented moment on the precipice of planetary climate disaster—and how frontline communities will feel the consequences much more than wealthy ones. Deadline: 21 October 2020

This call is designed to provide seed funding for projects between academic actors in Switzerland and the following countries: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Deadline for applications: 14 September 2020

With just ten years to go to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN’s 2030 Agenda, science funders from around the world have asked the International Science Council (ISC) to convene the insights and ideas of the broader global scientific community on the critical priorities for science that will support and enable societies to accomplish the goals by 2030. We want to hear from scientists in all fields and all disciplines, including the natural, social and human sciences. Deadline: 2 October 2020

A new article in Land Use Policy documents the support provided to the National Land Use Policy (NLUP) process in Myanmar and focusses on four interlinked aspects that are mutually reinforcing each other when brought together in such a process.

Integrative policy frameworks targeting a “sustainable restoration economy” can help improve the cost feasibility of restoration projects through circularization of resource value chains besides enhancing social welfare and ecological vitality.

Papers sought for a special issue of Land Degradation & Development. Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2021.

Papers sought for a special issue of Current Research in Environmental Sustainability. Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2020.

GLP Members look at the soy trade in Brazil, the world's largest exporter, to analyze supply chain stickiness and explain why it is essential to curb deforestation. The research was published in One Earth.

NASA's ARSET program makes remote sensing possible for audiences worldwide through free, online and in-person trainings on NASA satellites, sensors, and their applications. Over 40,000 individuals from over 170 countries have attended ARSET trainings since 2009, and GLP regularly features the events on our website. Learn more about the program's history and accomplishments during its tenth anniversary year.

Robert Heilmayr, Kim Carlson, and Jason Jon Benedict have a new paper in Environmental Research Letters on deforestation spillovers from RSPO certification in Indonesia. The paper provides some interesting evidence to suggest that eco-certification can strengthen compliance with government land use restrictions.

The GLP Scientific Steering Committee invites calls from internationally-active institutes to host the International Programme Office (IPO) of the Global Land Programme (GLP) starting in 2022.

ERC Advanced Grants are designed to support excellent Principal Investigators from any country who conduct their research activity in any EU Member State or H2020 Associated Country.  Deadline is 26 August 2020.

The Latin American and Caribbean Chapter of INGSA (INGSA-LAC) is calling for an essay competition on the state of science advice to governments in Latin America and Caribbean countries. Deadline for submissions is 15 August 2020.

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of India and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) have established a number of fellowships for foreign scholars from developing countries who wish to pursue research toward a PhD in emerging areas of science and technology for which facilities are available in the laboratories and institutes of the CSIR. Extended deadline 31 July 2020. 

Innovation partnership grants will support the establishment of cooperation between Swiss researchers from universities, universities of applied sciences or public research institutes with non-​academic innovation agents in China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), Japan, South Korea and member states of ASEAN. Application deadline is 30 July 2020.

The Scholarship Programs’ Civil Society Scholar Awards support doctoral students and university faculty to undertake academic projects that will enrich socially-engaged research and critical scholarship in their home country or region. Deadline to apply is 22 July 2020.

With its project funding scheme, the Swiss National Science Foundation enables researchers to independently conduct research projects with topics and goals of their own choice. The next deadline for proposals is 1 October 2020.

Would you and your institution like to be an integral part of this premier event of the land system science community as we endeavor to contribute to sustainability transformations? The GLP SSC invites calls to host the GLP 5th Open Science Meeting (OSM) to take place preferably in late 2021 or early 2022.

GLP Members Mengmeng Li and Jasper van Vliet recently published a paper in Remote Sensing of Environment. Their 3D building structure data for Europe, the United States, and China are publicly available, and can be used for further analysis of urban environment, spatial planning, and land use projections.

Incoming SSC Member Rachael Garrett, GLP Member Owen Cortner, and colleagues published a new article in Ecology and Society that found branding integrated crop and livestock systems as sustainable could improve adoption, but would likely be unsuccessful at encouraging wide-scale change. 

GLP Members Franziska Wolpert, Cristina Quintas-Soriano, and Tobias Plieninger published in Sustainability Science a comparison of the 200-year history of cork, chestnut and olive landscapes and explored the processes of change as well as their driving forces.

GLP Members R. Ntsiva N. Andriatsitohaina, Enrico Celio, Jorge Lopis, Adrienne Grêt-Regamey and colleagues have published a paper with insights from two case studies in northeast Madagascar in the Journal of Land Use Science. Part of the paper was presented at the OSM 2019 in Bern.

Submissions are sought for a new Special Feature in Sustainability Science being edited by GLP Members Christian Kimmich, Christoph Oberlack and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas. Expressions of interest are due on 31 August 2020.

The Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) provides up to US $1 million total across 4-6 approved working groups led by academic, governmental agency, multilateral, or nonprofit institutions. Proposals are due 10 June 2020.

The Earth Leadership Program invites midcareer academic environmental scientists from North America (Canada, Mexico, and the United States) to apply for the 2021 Earth Leadership Fellowships. The program provides researchers with the skills, approaches, and theoretical frameworks for catalyzing change to address the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges. Deadline to apply is 29 May 2020.

The world’s most powerful business leaders have now joined conservation groups and political officials in committing to the “trillion tree” movement. President Trump announced his support in Davos in January. Exactly where should these trees be planted – and what good might they do? GLP Member Forrest Fleischman was featured on a radio program recently on the subject.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and Future Earth have partnered to facilitate the development and uptake of Earth observation data by Future Earth’s research networks. There is seed funding to support the production of research demonstrators up to €25,000 per project to strengthen the impact of Future Earth science at the UNFCCC COP-26 meeting. The aim is show how research data can be used in a real-world situation by end users, to make an impact on policy and/or as a step towards commercial or operational uptake of the research. This is an open call to the Future Earth community. 

A Special Issue in the journal Water will explore a wide range of relationships between agricultural production, the hydrologic cycle and its associated eco-hydrological systems in the tropics worldwide. The issue's Guest Editors are GLP Members Michael Coe, Marcia Macedo and Michael Lathuillière. Please note that the deadline for submissions is 31 December 2020.

Using the global model produces accuracies greater to individual models, with an overall classification accuracy greater than 80% for each city, this research provides an empirically grounded method to map cities, write GLP Member Shivani Agarwal and GLP Fellow Harina Nagendra in a new article in the Journal of Land Use Science.

The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) invites proposals for collaborative team-based synthesis research (Pursuits) around emerging SES topics starting 3 February 2020.

This study, which included work by GLP Members Roman Carrasco and Jose Don T. De Alban, investigated the dynamics and drivers of informal gold mining in northern Myanmar to shed light on the conditions needed for alternative livelihood and enforcement interventions to succeed. It was published in Conservation Science and Practice.

GLP is currently seeking to nominate two to three new members for our international Scientific Steering Committee (SSC), starting June 1, 2020. The activities of GLP are initiated, stimulated and overseen by the SSC, and the continuing success of GLP relies on the input of the SSC. In seeking nominations, we are looking for scientific excellence and a high level of commitment to actualizing GLP goals and activities. Deadline for nominations is 15 March 2020.

A new Perspective in Nature Sustainability, by GLP Fellows Billie Turner and Peter Verburg and GLP Members Beth Tellman and Nick Magliocca, presents a framework to identify illicit land transactions, and an approach to link them to land uses using remotely sensed data.

We are pleased to inform you about the call for applications for the third cohort of the Postdoc Academy for Transformational Leadership and kindly ask you to forward the call to postdocs who conduct sustainability research and deal with challenges regarding land use practices. Applications can be submitted until 16 February 2020.

Now you can catch up on what you missed at the OSM 2019 and more! Every recorded session from the conference is now available on our YouTube channel, along with our webinar series on co-production of knowledge and more. Subscribe to be notified when we add new videos in the future.

The Special Issue "Open System Modelling Frameworks toward a Better Understanding of Multi-Scale Interactions in Socio-Ecological Systems" in the Socio-Ecological Practice Research journal has issued a call for contributions. The editors, including Nodal Office Coordinator Christine Fürst, welcome submissions of socio-ecological practice research, novel simulation frameworks and how advanced modelling systems can support decision-making and policy implementation.

Several GLP Members and SSC Member Patrick Meyfroidt are the guest editors of a focus collection in Environmental Research Letters. The ERL issue explores new ways to put tools and data to work towards improving our understanding of direct and indirect land-use change caused by governance interventions. 

Clarivate Analytics, the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to enable researchers to accelerate discovery, published its annual Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) list this week with twenty-seven GLP Members, SSC Members, and GLP Fellows on it.

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) announced President-Elect for 2020 is Dennis Ojima, a professor emeritus at Colorado State University and GLP Fellow.

The secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) invites experts to apply to become members of the Science-Policy Interface (SPI). The public call for candidature opens on 24 October 2019 and will end on 10 November 2019 at 24:00 CET. The call is open to scientists from all regions and organizations and all relevant disciplines and thematic areas, with the priority given to the thematic areas of work identified in the SPI Work Programme 2020-2021.

Land (ISSN 2073-445X) is an international and crossdisciplinary peer-reviewed open access journal of land use/land change, land management, land system science and landscape, etc, published monthly online by MDPI. It is now indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI - Web of Science) and Scopus.

There is still an urgent need for quality standards to guide the design of theoretically rigorous and practically useful archetype analyses. In this article by GLP Members, the authors propose four quality criteria and corresponding research strategies to address them.

GLP Members Diana Sietz, Nicholas Magliocca, and Tomáš Václavík have published a synthesis of methods that enables innovative research designs in future archetype analysis.

This Special Issue of Sustainability will comprise a selection of papers addressing the environment–poverty nexus in the context of sustainable development. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development explicitly recognizes the interlinkages between the social, economic, and environmental spheres, and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are all intended to address these dimensions in a comprehensive manner.

 It aims at providing an international exchange platform for global leaders and stakeholders (policymakers, academics, businesses, entrepreneurs, and NGOs) to present and discuss worldwide initiatives, practices and visionary trends about sustainability. The ultimate goal is to achieve the long-lasting development of an inclusive and equitable society whereby prosperous growth goes together with a sustainable environment. 

GLP Member Nazzareno Diodato and colleagues present the hitherto longest reconstruction of damaging hydrological events for Italy, and for the whole Mediterranean region, revealing 674 such events over the period 800–2017. 

GLP Co-chair Peter Messerli, who is also the Co-chair of the United Nations Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR), presented to the UN General Assembly as part of the SDG Summit 2019. 

A new study in Science by GLP Fellow Erle Ellis and his colleagues challenges the commonly used narrative that humans have only very recently altered Earth’s landscapes in a major way. Compiling knowledge from more than 250 archaeologists worldwide, the research reveals a planet largely transformed by humans as early as 3,000 years ago. 

CIRM, MRI, and FoLAP are organizing a symposium on the future of research and training for the transformation of mountain regions. The organizers welcome contributions from the natural sciences, engineering, social sciences, and humanities working on this topic, both in Switzerland and around the world. DEADLINE AUGUST 30!

Read a new paper by members of the GLP Archetypes Working Group. Based on a systematic review, a survey, and a workshop series, the authors provide a consolidated perspective on the core features and diverse meanings of archetype analysis in sustainability research, the motivations behind it, and its policy relevance. They identify three core features of archetype analysis: recurrent patterns, multiple models, and intermediate abstraction.

SESYNC announces its Fall 2019 Request for Proposals (RFP) for collaborative team-based research projects that synthesize existing data, methods, theories, and tools to address a pressing socio-environmental problem. Proposals are due September 16, 2019. 

GLP Member Uchendu Chigbu invites submissions for this special issue, which builds a knowledge base of research that presents emerging land tools or methods that can improve understanding of land–women–youth–policy relationships.

GLP Member Alan Di Vittorio is seeking submissions for the AGU session, "GC029 - Humans in the Earth System" at the Fall Meeting in San Francisco this December.

Future Earth invites GLP Members to contribute to research priorities and recommendations on Systems of Sustainable Consumption and Production, as input to a Belmont Forum scoping process for a potential Collaborative Research Action major funding opportunity.

GLP Members Jennifer AM Koch and Derek Robinson are editing a Special Issue of Land. They are especially interested in manuscripts describing new approaches to land change modelling as well as large-scale applications.

Researchers including GLP Member Žiga Malek have published an overview and spatial analysis of implemented strategies in the region.

This Research Topic will focus on labor requirements and livelihood impacts of alternative land use systems. Papers are sought from a broad spectrum of scholars who undertake research at local, regional or global scale.

Scientists and government officials meet this week in Paris to finalise a key assessment on humanity's relationship with nature. The Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES, will issue the first report of this type since 2005. It will detail the past losses and future prospects for nature and humans. SSC Member Unai Pascual and GLP Member Sandra Díaz are quoted in this BBC piece.

The Co-production of Sustainable Land Systems Working Group produced a series of five webinars aimed at enhancing the capacity of researchers in transdisciplinary methods. It can now be viewed in its entirety, including video recordings, downloadable presentations, and additional resources.

A team of international experts, including GLP Member Verena Seufert from the VU, explains that organic farming is an important part of the solution for changing the current agricultural and food system.

From 24 to 26 April 2019, over 600 leading scientists from all over the world will meet in Bern for the 4th Open Science Meeting of the Global Land Programme (GLP). Its theme: Transforming Land Systems for People and Nature – What research and policies are needed to achieve ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable land systems? Ariane de Bremond, senior research scientist at the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) of the University of Bern and executive officer of the GLP International Programme Office, discussed the role of the conference.

Telecoupling Working Group Coordinator Cecilie Friis and SSC Member Jonas Nielsen have published a book that presents an overview of telecoupling and its relevance in understanding global land-use change and its sustainablility challenges.

In this article the authors examine how agricultural production and productivity responded to a key forest conservation policy in the Brazilian Amazon—the government’s priority municipality (Municípios Prioritários) list, which was introduced in 2008, as part of the action plan to curb deforestation.

You are invited to submit an article to a special issue of a Springer Nature journal on the theme Learning Sustainability: Earth, Experience, Ethics.

GLP Fellow Patrick Hostert invites oral presentations and posters that deepen insights on land scarcity, limitations, and related advances in remote sensing and improved modeling of land systems. The session will take place on in August during the KOSMOS Conference in Berlin, Germany.

GLP Fellow Erle Ellis was recentlhy a co-author on a piece in BioScience on the lessons learned from Natura 2000.

Global Forest Watch (GFW) is excited to announce new calls for applications for three exciting opportunities: the Small Grants Fund, the Technology Fellowship and the first-ever User Story Contest. 

GLP Member Qiangyi Yu recently had research published in Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment.

GLP Members Sébastien Boillat, Timothy Adams, Jorge Llopis, Elena Zepharovich, and Christoph Oberlack invite papers for a proposed session that will take place at the Environmental Justice Conference 2019 “Transformative Connections” at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, 2-4 July.

GLP Member Timothy Searchinger and his colleagues have published research in Nature proposing a carbon benefits index that measures how changes in the output types, output quantities and production processes of a hectare of land contribute to the global capacity to store carbon and to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions.

The GLP working group on co-production held its fourth webinar, on co-designing sustainable land systems with spatial analysis and mapping tools in the field of land-system science, in December. View a recording of the full webinar, download copies of the presentations, and more.

Are you going to the 2018 AGU Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C.? We've compiled a guide to sessions presented by GLP members so you don't miss anything! Don't forget to tweet using our hashtag #glpagu to communicate with other GLP members at the event.

POPGRID is pleased to announce the launch of a Web site that guides users on the products available and their characteristics (including comparison tables), and a map tool (POPGRID Viewer) that enables visual and quantitative comparisons among data sets.

We invite papers for the focus collection of Environmental Research Letters (erl.iop.org) entitled: “The Social-Ecological Future of the American West”. Deadline for responses is 30 November 2018.

In a recently published study, GLP Members Katharina Schulze, Žiga Malek and Peter Verburg developed global maps of forest classes and uses by downscaling global FAO Forest Resource Assessment statistics.

The GLP working group on co-production held its third webinar, on participatory modelling, scenario building and forecasting techniques in the field of land-system science, in November. View a recording of the full webinar, download copies of the presentations, and more.

GLP Members Alexander Prishchepov and Fabian Loew are guest editors for a special issue of Land and invite submissions until December 31, 2019.

A workshop to share knowledge and methods and to promote collaboration on “Earth Observation for the Land Matrix Initiative” was held at the University of Bern, Switzerland October 8-10, 2019. The workshop was a new collaboration between research teams from the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), NASA Land Cover Land Use Change (LCLUC) program, CIRAD (TETIS), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), and the GIZ, together with representatives of National and Global Observatories of the Land Matrix Initiative.

The GLP working group on co-production held its second webinar, on adaptive landscape approaches using role-playing games for co-production in the field of land-system science, in October. View a recording of the full webinar, download copies of the presentations, and more.

A grand, integrated theory of land system change remains elusive. Yet, this paper shows that middle-range theories – defined as contextual generalizations that describe chains of causal mechanisms explaining a well-bounded range of phenomena, as well as the conditions that trigger, enable, or prevent these causal chains –, provide a path towards generalized knowledge of land systems. This knowledge can support progress towards sustainable social-ecological systems.

In this MOOC from ETH Zurich, participants learn theory, methods and tools to understand the landscapes we live in and to solve landscape-related environmental problems.

An excellent overview of how the global land change research community is applying a governance lens to telecoupled phenomena, building on the recent "Governance in Telecoupled Land Systems" workshop held in Berne, Switzerland, earlier this year.

GLP Fellow Harini Nagendra and Xuemei Bai, authors of a new Perspective paper in Nature Sustainability, call for a renewed research focus on urbanization in the south and discuss the challenges and consequences of this pursuit.

New research published in Nature Sustainability by GLP Members Zia Mehrabi, Erle Ellis and Navin Ramankutty finds dealing with the biodiversity crisis by giving nature more space could result in losing a lot of food.

Developed nations can learn from China in reaching global sustainability goals, according to the first comprehensive study on the effectiveness of China’s world-leading environmental investment by GLP Member Brett Bryan.

GLP Member Carlos Portillo-Quintero has published a national and sub-national level assessment of tropical dry forest loss patterns in Mexico and Central America at high spatial and temporal resolution using remote sensing and GIS technologies. 

GLP Member Ziga Malek and GLP Fellow Peter Verburg have found that improving the state of water resources while increasing food production is possible. Their article was published in Global Environmental Change.

GLP Member Pinki Mondal and colleagues Sonali McDermid and Marcia Macedo welcome submissions of abstracts to a session on "Global Vegetation and Land Surface Dynamics in a Changing Climate" at the 2018 AGU Fall Meeting.

GLP Fellows Erle C Ellis and Jinwei Dong, and colleagues Paolo Tarolli and Damian Evans, We welcome submissions of abstracts to a session on "Fingerprinting the Anthropocene: Observing and Understanding Social Change Across Earth's Landscapes" at the 2018 AGU Fall Meeting.

The GLP working group on co-production held its first webinar, a kick-off session for anyone interested in co-production in the field of land-system science, in June. View a recording of the full webinar, download copies of the presentations, and more.

XPRIZE is asking for your design concepts that can help solve a global need in one of five Grand Challenge Areas. The designers of the best concepts will work with experts at XPRIZE to further refine their concepts and develop them into the robust, incentivized competitions that take a global stage at our premier annual event, Visioneering 2018.  Participants will be eligible to win prizes up to $100k in value.

The Institute of Geography and the Institute of Geological Sciences of the University of Bern, as well as the Platform Geosciences of the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) cordially invite you to participate in the 16th Swiss Geoscience Meeting to be held on Friday, November 30th and Saturday, December 1st, 2018 in Bern.

Announcing the first International Symposium focusing on the full complexity of changes associated with the transformation of tropical lowland rainforest into plantations systems such as rubber and oil palm with a focus on Southeast Asia. The event will take place in Bali, Indonesia, from 7-11 October 2018.

GLP Member Anna Hersperger and colleagues have published an article in Global Environmental Change with a research agenda formulated to establish a truly theory-based approach to describe and model the role of spatial planning in urban land-use change.

Submission is now open for proposals to present symposia at the 10th IALE world congress that will be held in Milan (Italy) on 2019, July 1-5. The deadline for submitting symposium proposals is 2018, June 30.

A new study published in Global Environmental Change by Claudia Rodriguez Solorzano and GLP Member Forrest Fleischman explores the value of understanding historical political and institutional conditions in the design and development of effective protected areas. They found protected areas located in areas with greater economic and political equality may be more effective at conserving nature.

The Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA), a global research project of Future Earth, is looking for survey respondants for the project Toward biodiversity-related opportunities for sustainable development - a global social-ecological mountain comparison. For this global assessment, analyses will be performed at the level of mountain ranges or sub-ranges. Accordingly, they are asking for a broad picture of the mountain area respondants know, its nature, and the wellbeing of its inhabitants.

In a new paper GLP Member Dr. Qiangyi Yu and colleagues, combined the number of cropland patches with the total cropland area for a more comprehensive characterization of cropland change in China based on GlobeLand30.

The coordinators of the Archetype Analysis Working Group cordially invite you to submit a paper to the upcoming Special Feature on “Archetype Analysis in Sustainability Research” in Ecology and Society from now onward until 31 May 2018.

Martin Brandt, along with SSC Fellow Ole Mertz and GLP Member Stephanie Herrmann, published an article in Nature Geoscience this month on macroscale assessments of the impact of management and climate on woody cover for drylands. They concluded that agricultural expansion causes a considerable reduction of trees in woodlands, but observations in Sahel indicate that villagers safeguard trees on nearby farmlands which contradicts simplistic ideas of a high negative correlation between population density and woody cover.

Future Earth has named 12 leading sustainability innovators to its recently-formed Advisory Committee, which will guide the next phase of Future Earth’s research and engagement. The new members of this committee come from the worlds of research, business and politics; they include a former member of Mongolia’s parliament, as well as a technology CEO named one of Time magazine’s most influential people. This group of inspiring innovators join co-Chairs Johan Rockström and Leena Srivastava, who were appointed to the Committee late last year.

Worsening land degradation caused by human activities is undermining the well-being of two fifths of humanity, driving species extinctions and intensifying climate change. It is also a major contributor to mass human migration and increased conflict, according to the world’s first comprehensive evidence-based assessment of land degradation and restoration.

The international summit-conference will address the scientific basis of Climate Change in the region, its various impacts and challenges, mitigation/adaptation strategies, policy challenges and governance. This Conference will be preceded by two days of “more focused” scientific workshops (16th and 17th). The Pre-Conference workshops will examine in detail issues related to Air pollution and Climate Change, and interconnections with Energy and Agriculture in the region in view of the ongoing of Climate Change. The overall goal of the Summit-Conference would be to launch a “Nicosia Declaration” regarding the scientific basis of Climate Change in the region, including the high-level propositions for mitigation/ adaptation strategies.

With the increasing introduction of transdisciplinary research (TDR) in sustainability and land use sciences, the issue of evaluation has come to the fore. A new study aims to gather insights into the perceptions and assessments of success of TDR projects from scientists and practitioners. 

The International Resource Panel is seeking volunteers to contribute a very short (750-1500 word) policy chapter on one of the SDGs addressing the (a) co-benefits and possible costs/tradeoffs of land Restoration for the SDG, and (b) strategies for using land restoration to achieve the SDG. The chapters should be written for policymakers, and supported by at least several references.  Responses from scientist-practitioners with both specialized knowledge of individual SDGs and an understanding of sustainable land management/restoration/rehabilitation are particularly welcome. 

SSC Member Darla Munroe uses GLOBE for one of the assignments in her course, Geography 5402 - Land-use Geography. She wrote a report on the assignment as well as the students’ assessment of the platform. She also offers some ideas for how GLOBE could evolve further to include higher-level frameworks.

There are no accepted guidelines for detecting biases or logical gaps between 'generalized knowledge claims' (GKC’s) and the evidence used to produce them. In this important new article in Global Environmental Change, several GLP Members propose a typology of GKCs based on their evidence base and the process by which they are produced.

The GLP Working Group on «Archetype Analysis in Land Governance and Sustainability Research» convened its second workshop at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin from 28 February through 2 March 2018. The meeting made an important next step in consolidating the precise meaning and methodological portfolio of archetype analysis. Discussions were held on current methodological challenges and best practices in archetype analysis.

GLP Member Zia Mehrabi had a Correspondence piece published in Nature on the need to democratize access to big data, field robotics and new sensing technology to suit the smallholders who comprise the majority of farmers worldwide.

LANDSCAPE EUROPE is an interdisciplinary network of national research institutes with expertise in landscape assessment, planning and management at the interface of policy implementation, education and state-of-the-art science in support of sustainable landscape. Their new website features events, calls and posted vacancies. 

GLP Member Laura Sonter's work on the environmental impact of mining in Brazil's Amazon was quoted in a lengthy piece in The Globe and Mail on Highway BR-163, which cuts a brutal path through Brazil’s conflicting ambitions: to transform itself into an economic powerhouse and to preserve the Amazon as a bulwark against climate change.

A joint workshop of the European Space Agency GlobDiversity consortium and the Future Earth Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA), Global Land Programme (GLP), and BioDISCOVERY Global Research Projects looked at recent developments in remote sensing (RS) and the beginning of a new era in biodiversity monitoring and assessment by enabling not only the collection of spatial data but also that of biodiversity data.

A major reduction in global deforestation is needed to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss. Recent private sector commitments aim to eliminate deforestation from a company’s operations or supply chain, but they fall short on several fronts. Lead author GLP Fellow Eric Lambin and GLP Member Robert Heilmayr review current supply-chain initiatives, their effectiveness, and the challenges they face, and go on to identify knowledge gaps for complementary public–private policies.

The Centre for Mountain Ecosystem Studies (CMES), together with the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) would like to invite contributions for the 2nd International Conference on Mountain Futures, with a focus on “Ecosystem Rhythms, Land Systems, and Sustainable Livelihoods”.

As part of the 2018 IGU Regional Conference (http://igu2018.ulaval.ca) which will be held in the Québec City Convention Centre from August 6 to 10, 2018, the IGU commission on Geography for Future Earth: Coupled Human-Earth Systems for Sustainability (IGU-GFE) will organize the session “Coupled Human-Earth Systems for Sustainability”.