DISES: Governance across Space: Discovering Principles of Equity and Sustainability to Conserve Migratory Species within Telecoupled Social Environmental Systems

鸟类和蝙蝠经常跨越国际边界和影响其迁徙的不同法规和政策的国家进行非常远的迁徙。随着迁徙物种的显著减少，重要的是要了解影响其旅程的潜在社会和环境因素，并评估减缓这些减少的潜在手段。人们越来越认识到，一个地方的社会和生态进程可以系统地影响遥远地区的社会和生态系统。在这样的位置之间连接这些过程的连接称为远程耦合，所有连接的位置都是远程耦合系统的一部分。在整个历史上，这样的制度影响了人类社会。例如，19世纪末，当意大利农民为迁徙的水鸟排干湿地栖息地的水，从而影响了奥地利的狩猎活动时，奥地利的猎人进行了抗议。最近，亚洲对大豆的需求导致亚马逊地区的森林砍伐和土著生计中断。世界上的许多环境问题现在被理解为远程耦合系统的现象，现在已经有科学工具来量化它们。由于远程耦合系统往往跨越遥远的距离，跨越多个国际边界，今天的主要挑战是开发适当的治理系统。解决远程耦合的环境问题可能需要将一个地方的生态和社会现象与其他地方的管理联系起来的治理(即远程耦合治理)。该奖项通过研究候鸟和蝙蝠的远程耦合系统以及相关的治理系统来满足这一需求。这项研究将确定导致远程耦合治理的条件。然后，这项研究将探索远程耦合治理是否以及何时会产生更具生态可持续性和社会公平的结果。最后，该奖项将促使政府和非政府实体制定将公平和可持续性原则纳入迁徙物种保护的实际方法。学生将在生态圈2接受为期一周的身临其境的科学传播研讨会的培训。研究人员将通过调查、面对面和在线采访、焦点小组和小组讨论，让当地利益相关者、资源经理和决策者参与进来。项目成果将在项目结束时与决策者和利益攸关方在墨西哥城举行的互动研讨会上产生远程耦合治理的设计原则。该奖项使用基于远程联系和社会生态系统概念的强大理论框架作为汇聚科学的基础，该科学将社会科学理论与应用环境科学相结合，并促进社会环境系统这一新学科的发展。该奖项将目前评价地方社会环境系统治理的方法与充分描述这些系统如何在整个空间社会和生态上联系在一起的方法结合起来。通过这样做，研究人员克服了现有社会科学和环境科学研究方法中的弱点，并使：(I)社会科学研究更准确地解释了许多社会环境系统的远程关联生态结构，以及(Ii)环境科学研究更有力地解释了塑造生态和公平结果的跨尺度机构和社会经济因素。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Birds and bats often migrate over very long distances crossing international boundaries and countries with differing regulations and policies affecting their migrations. With the significant decline in migratory species it is important to understand the potential social and environmental factors that impact their journey and evaluate potential means to mitigate these declines. It is increasingly recognized that social and ecological processes in one place can systematically affect societies and ecosystems in distant locations. Connections that link these processes among such locations are known as telecouplings, and all connected locations are part of a telecoupled system. Such systems have influenced human societies throughout history. For example, in the late 1800s Austrian hunters protested when Italian farmers drained wetland habitats for migratory waterfowl, thereby impacting hunting in Austria. Recently, Asian demand for soybeans has led to deforestation and the disruption of Indigenous livelihoods in the Amazon. Many of the world’s environmental problems are now understood as phenomena of telecoupled systems, and the scientific tools now exist to quantify them. Because telecoupled systems often span vast distances, and cross multiple international boundaries, today’s major challenge is in developing appropriate governance systems. Addressing telecoupled environmental problems may require governance that links ecological and societal phenomena in one location with management in other locations (i.e., telecoupled governance). This award addresses this need through studying telecoupled systems of migratory birds and bats and the associated governance systems. The research will identify the conditions that lead to telecoupled governance. Then the research will explore if and when telecoupled governance results in more ecologically sustainable and societally equitable outcomes. Finally, the award will engage governmental and nongovernmental entities to develop practical approaches for incorporating the principles of equity and sustainability into conservation of migratory species. Students will be trained using week-long, immersive Science Communication Workshops at Biosphere 2. Researchers will engage local stakeholders, resource managers, and decision- makers through surveys and in-person and online interviews, focus groups and panels. The project outcomes will produce design principles for telecoupled governance with decision-makers and stakeholders at an interactive workshop in Mexico City at the conclusion of the project.The award uses a strong theoretical framework based on teleconnections and socio-ecological systems concepts as a foundation for convergence science that merges social science theory with applied environmental sciences and advances the new discipline of social-environmental systems. The award integrates current approaches to evaluate the governance of local socio-environmental systems with approaches that fully describe how these systems are socially and ecologically connected across space. In so doing, the investigators overcome weaknesses in existing social and environmental science research approaches and enable: (i) social science research that more accurately accounts for the teleconnected ecological structure of many socio-environmental systems, and (ii) environmental science research that more powerfully accounts for the cross-scale institutional and socio-economic factors that shape ecological and equity outcomes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.