In the coastal area of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, much of the mangrove forest has been cut to make space for expansion of industry and aquaculture. Export-oriented shrimp farming is a particularly fast-growing business. Nonetheless, the importance of tropical mangrove forest ecosystems for coastal protection and marine biodiversity is widely recognized. The Vietnamese government, supported by non-governmental organizations and donors, has sought to restore mangrove forest. To this end, the government has promoted mixed or integrated mangrove-shrimp systems in which farmers maintain at least 40 per cent of their area under mangrove cover. Since 2012, mangrove reforestation, care and protection has benefited from local authority stimulus as well. Multiple studies have examined the condition of the mangrove forest in Ben Tre and other coastal provinces of the Mekong Delta. However, no research has investigated the role of social dynamics in farmers' willingness to shift to, or maintain, integrated mangrove-shrimp systems. Specifically, the influence of information, group dynamics and social learning on farmer decision-making is poorly understood and, indeed, hardly investigated in Vietnam. This article reports on a study of social processes in three communes in Binh Dai District, Ben Tre Province, Vietnam. We conducted 42 semi-structured interviews (with 34 farmers and eight local officials) and used secondary data. Our preliminary findings indicate that social dynamics in these communes were issue-driven and played an important role in farmers' decisions to adopt, or convert to, the integrated mangrove-shrimp farming system. Television, radio, the internet, books, neighbours and training courses all had some influence in farmer decision-making processes. However, our findings suggest that the accessibility, usefulness, relevance and approach of these communication methods must be improved if they are to adequately inform and support local farmers.

Learning is considered as a promising mechanism to cope with rapid environmental change. The implications of learning for natural resource management (NRM) have not been explored in-depth and the evidence on the topic is scattered across multiple sources. We provide a qualitative review of types of learning outcomes and consider their manifestations in NRM across selected empirical literature. We conducted a systematic search of the peer-reviewed literature (N = 1,223) and a qualitative meta-synthesis of included articles, with an explicit focus on learning outcomes and NRM changes (N = 53). Besides social learning, we found several learning concepts used, including policy and transformative learning, and multiple links between learning and NRM reported. We observe that the development of skills, together with a system approach involving multi-level capacities, is decisive for implications of learning for NRM. Future reviews could systematically compare how primary research applies different learning concepts and discusses links between learning and NRM changes.

On the 25^th January, 25 researchers, social entrepreneurs and policy makers attended a MOVIUM and SLU Urban Futures funded workshop on “Rethinking urban nature to promote human well-being and livelihoods”.  The objectives of the workshop were to identify and discuss integrated digital, social and nature solutions for the use, management and governance of urban nature in the City of Malmö; and to provide a platform for knowledge sharing and networking between researchers and practitioners.

Multiple enlightening presentations on how to plan, design and manage urban nature were provided by the cities of Malmö and Copenhagen, social entrepreneurs and academics. Each presentation guided a creative workshop activity that involved four groups creating an integrated solution using Lego and other materials to address the concerns of citizens presented in different scenarios relevant to the use and management of urban nature in Malmö.  Each group was asked to present their presentation to the wider group, what inspired them the most from the workshop activity and how their understanding of integrated solutions in urban nature changed over the day. This report presents a summary of each group’s creations and findings.

This study explores the implications of engaging students vs. professionals / stakeholders in pilot-testing of SDSS and discusses likely differences in terms of experiences and outcomes for the given pilot-test. To this end we use data collected during two pilot tests of a novel SDSS. The pilot-tests were done with two different groups; one made of thirteen doctoral students, while the other of twelve professionals / stakeholders. The pilot-test served to gather feedback on SDSS usability and other aspects of interest to the development team. Based on the outcomes obtained we develop an analytical framework meant to summarise key aspects impacting on how different (tester) profiles will engage during a pilot, and on feedback they provide. These key aspects include expertise, stage of life, and institutional context (ESI). This framework could offer some help to SDSS / DSS development teams in planning, organizing, and delivering pilot-test, and processing the assessments received.

With the large increase in transportation over the last decades and the associated negative impacts upon the environment and society, a more sustainable use of transport is a crucial policy issue. This analysis focuses on road freight transport of selected produce (carrots, cabbage, apples and pears) with the aim to appraise the sustainability of road freight transport of these for the Slovene market. To this end, we take into account self-sufficiency, import and export features, transport needs, produce origin and prices differences between domestic and non-domestic produce. The method used for obtaining transported quantities, exported from and imported to the county, was material flow accounts (MFA). Then we undertook an analysis of sustainability of road transport of produce where we considered the country's transport needs. The study finds that road freight transport for selected produce is not sustainable. Recognising the normative dimensions of sustainability, the role of social marketing in this context is explored and suggestions on how to promote more sustainable transport solutions advanced.

Contemporary approaches to environmental research are calling for a type of scientific inquiry that is able to bring together the natural and social sciences. This with the aim to advance our understanding of environmental issues and produce synthetic and actionable knowledge meant to address these. Yet, interdisciplinarity research of this type is a demanding and challenging pursuit; many have shown that in certain thematic areas and geographic regions practice falls behind discourse. We bring together ideas about interdisciplinary research collaborations (after Patricia L. Rosenfield) and interdisciplinary epistemic synthesis (after Julie T. Klein) that are used to analyse a sample of research projects funded (from 2006 to 2013) by the Slovene Research Agency. We triangulated interview data (with principal investigators) with document analysis and integrated these with other secondary data. Our results suggest for the sample of environmental projects to be interdisciplinary in a narrow sense, this prevalently within natural and life sciences with little input from the humanities and social sciences. Also, the results obtained suggest that environmental research with unambiguous problem solving objectives is preferred over research with a high degree of abstraction, as involved in theoretical and conceptual work.

Many have discussed the crucial role that environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) have played in the implementation of nature protection policies across European member states. However, there are important differences in the opportunity structures among new and old member states that influence how ENGOs can act and undertake activities. This article seeks to clarify the role of ENGO capacity building within the context of multilevel environmental governance and focuses on a case in which Slovene ENGOs mobilized against the siting of 80 windmills in a natural area suggested for protection under the EU Birds and Habitats Directive. The dispute involved ENGOs seeking to pursue nature protection objectives against state authorities who prioritized green energy infrastructural development. The article analyses the mobilization strategies pursued and the combination of material, cognitive, social and symbolic resources used. The results suggest that these resources had to be mobilized and organized along both horizontal (domestic) and vertical (international) axes, and that this combination appears key in advancing an environmental protection agenda.

The article presents the results of a research done in rural settlements located within the area of the prospective Dragonja Landscape Park. We analysed documents of local communities, undertook observation of a workshop, and interviewed ten local inhabitants in order to obtain information about local inhabitants’ awareness and their interest in being involved in rural development, and about their valuing of the environment and natural resources, and to gain insight into their expectations in the matters of quality of life. We have established that our respondents are entirely familiar with the past and current development programs and projects, that they are well aware of the importance the protection of natural and cultural heritage has for sustainable development, and that they want to participate actively in the future. With the help of our respondents, observation in the workshop, and analysis of the documents also the less promising aspects of development have been revealed. We found out that local participation was weak in the past, that those who were active are in the minority, and that changes depend on the collective efforts of individuals. Those living in the remote villages located in the area of the prospective Dragonja Landscape Park are few and mostly of advanced age. It seems that the younger ones have resigned themselves to being powerless, and therefore it is urgent, in order to foster their participation in local development, to increase their awareness and motivation and extend their education. We also can expect that the incoming young people will have an important role to play.

The concept of ecosystem services has been extensively studied in recent decades. Most studies have focused on describing the specific aspects such as production, spatial extent, valuation of services and the trade-off between services. Few studies however assess the practitioners? views on the frameworks, models or tools developed. In this paper, we report on a multi-stakeholder workshop where two tools were tested (i) the ecosystem service cascade framework was tested as a means to frame the issues and (ii) a participatory-spatial modelling method, QUICKScan, was tested as an aid to support discussion over natural resource management and planning in a multi-use landscape. A focused group discussion was utilised to determine stakeholders? views of the cascade framework and pre- and post-workshop questionnaires quantified the stakeholders? views of the QUICKScan method. The stakeholders identified both positive and negative aspects of both tools. The diversity of views expressed were associated with (i) the past experience of the individual with the issues discussed, (ii) the technical aspects of the tools i.e. the ability with GIS and (iii) the level of new shared knowledge they reported acquiring on the day which was related to their initial knowledge of the issue and area studied.