Maria Brück, J. Schultner, Birhanu Bekele Negash, Dadi Feyisa Damu, D. Abson
{"title":"Plural valuation in southwestern Ethiopia: Disaggregating values associated with ecosystems in a smallholder landscape","authors":"Maria Brück, J. Schultner, Birhanu Bekele Negash, Dadi Feyisa Damu, D. Abson","doi":"10.1002/pan3.10555","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10555","url":null,"abstract":"Recognizing the diversity of preferences for, and values ascribed to, ecosystems in decision‐making can help to realize more sustainable and equitable policies for transformative change. The goal of this paper was to assess how rankings of ecosystem products (i.e. their relative importance in people's lives) relate to people's individual characteristics, their social–ecological context and the values they ascribe to each ecosystem product. In our case study in southwestern Ethiopia, we considered 11 ecosystem products and four value types (direct use, exchange, relational, intrinsic). We used descriptive statistics, hierarchical clustering and chi‐square tests of independence to analyse the data. On average, maize and teff were ranked as most important, and direct use and relational value were the most important value types. Beneficiaries often ascribed multiple values to each ecosystem product, and direct use and relational values better explained overall importance rankings than exchange or intrinsic values. Five groups of beneficiaries, who each prioritized a different set of ecosystem products, differed in their occupation, and in their social–ecological context, in terms of the villages they lived in and the ecosystem products they produced. Beneficiaries in each of the five groups ascribed different value types to their prioritized ecosystem products, and these did not always align with the value types that were generally judged most important by the group. We recommend that sustainable landscape management should reflect the diversity of people's value ascription, including non‐exchange values. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.","PeriodicalId":52850,"journal":{"name":"People and Nature","volume":"20 18","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2023-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139274720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lars Langer, Manuel Burghardt, Roland Borgards, Ronny Richter, Christian Wirth
{"title":"The relation between biodiversity in literature and social and spatial situation of authors: Reflections on the nature–culture entanglement","authors":"Lars Langer, Manuel Burghardt, Roland Borgards, Ronny Richter, Christian Wirth","doi":"10.1002/pan3.10551","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10551","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Understanding the nature–culture entanglement by combining the methods of natural sciences and humanities is little approached in neither of the fields. With a specific combination of methods from both digital humanities and ecology, we aimed at identifying several of people's life circumstances that relate to their individual sensitivity towards biodiversity. The circumstances with a strong correlation could be considered and targeted by decision‐makers, for example by developing specific education programmes for making people more eco‐conscious or adjusting relevant regulations. We applied machine learning techniques onto a database including information about the frequency of biodiversity mentioned in creative literature (BiL) from 1705 to 1969 as response variable related to metadata about the corresponding works and their authors as predictors, including localisation, age, gender and literature genre. The algorithm determined the response's dependency on each predictor, which can be interpreted as the intensity of this particular sensitivity parameter for biodiversity, and which we also related to time. We recognised that gender, age, region and settlement size are predictors significantly correlated to BiL. Statistically, these predictors can be viewed as starting points of the eventual individual level of awareness for biodiversity. For example, authors from villages exhibit a higher BiL than those from cities, which we interpret as a signal for the dependence of awareness for biodiversity on spatial distance from nature, which in turn can be addressed in urban development. Our conclusion is that applying a machine learning technique on literary data yields meaningful results, thereby showing potential for further similar investigations and the combination of methods from natural sciences and humanities to achieve so far unattainable insights. With our study, these insights could contribute to ecologically based decision‐making processes. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.","PeriodicalId":52850,"journal":{"name":"People and Nature","volume":"30 11","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135038821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Addressing fraudulent responses in online surveys: Insights from a web‐based participatory mapping study","authors":"Malcolm S. Johnson, Vanessa M. Adams, Jason Byrne","doi":"10.1002/pan3.10557","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10557","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Web‐based studies of human dimensions are increasing across environmental and socio‐ecological disciplines. However, the prevalence of fraud threatens research quality. Increased fraud rates should be expected as surveys move progressively more online, motivated by expanding reach, cost savings and/or in response to COVID‐19. Web‐based research must better account for fraud to maintain confidence in findings. Practical diagnostic tools and data quality protocols are required to detect fraud and ensure results quality. Drawing on our experience using an online participatory mapping case study, we discuss methods to detect potentially fraudulent responses—and identify some limitations. We begin by reviewing the current state of knowledge on fraudulent responses or ‘fraudsters’ and its relative absence in environmental and socio‐ecological disciplines. We then describe our research approach, the indicators and variables we used to detect and assess fraud and our decision‐making process to eliminate suspicious responses without jeopardizing research integrity. We found that despite several preventative measures, many fraudulent respondents could provide survey responses and effectively mimicked legitimate respondents at first glance. By assuming each response to be ‘potentially fraudulent’, we determined that the complete screening of each respondent, while time‐consuming, can limit the prevalence of fraud. We also determined that the most common data consistency checks (e.g. duration, trap questions and straight‐liner checks) are unlikely to guarantee valid respondents. If not acknowledged and addressed, fraud has the potential to undermine data integrity, discredit research findings and limit the utility of results for policy. This study contributes to environmental and socio‐ecological research by reviewing existing fraudster literature and using our experience with fraud to provide recommendations for researchers to address this problem. We encourage researchers implementing online qualitative research methods to thoroughly assess and report fraud, when possible, to ensure widespread knowledge of this growing threat. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.","PeriodicalId":52850,"journal":{"name":"People and Nature","volume":"2 10","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135037316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Seeing beyond the frames we inherit: A challenge to tenacious conservation narratives","authors":"Stephen M. Chignell, Terre Satterfield","doi":"10.1002/pan3.10550","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10550","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Natural and social scientists everywhere are struggling to understand how to proceed in the face of continued biodiversity loss and the injustices brought upon people living in and around conservation landscapes. This has resulted in increasing calls for critical reflection on the narratives driving conservation research and practice. Narratives can be understood as part of a larger process of “framing” within an intellectual community, which includes the way studies are defined and discussed. Identifying, reflecting on and even destabilizing entrenched frames can be helpful for understanding when and where our diagnosis or understanding of a problem fails. However, we also need to understand the scholarly processes that create and reify some frames (and not others) over time. We address these needs by developing a mixed‐method approach that integrates qualitative frame analysis and quantitative science mapping to identify the origins of the dominant frame and trace its reproduction in the scientific literature over time. We demonstrate this approach using the case of the Bale Mountains, an internationally recognised centre of species endemism in Ethiopia. Our results show the enduring influence of the perceptions and values of a few early conservation scientists working with limited data. This led to erroneous assumptions and conclusions that, in some cases, were corrected by later research, but in many cases were not. This was a function of the social and intellectual structure of the scientific network, minor but consequential decisions in data interpretation and specific citational habits. Synthesizing these results, we identify several linked mechanisms that helped the dominant frame retain its tenacity and may also be at work in other contexts. We close with a discussion on how others might apply our approach and how future scientific research and conservation practice could proceed differently. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.","PeriodicalId":52850,"journal":{"name":"People and Nature","volume":"76 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135393058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Maldwyn J. Evans, Kevin J. Gaston, Daniel T. C. Cox, Masashi Soga
{"title":"The research landscape of direct, sensory human–nature interactions","authors":"Maldwyn J. Evans, Kevin J. Gaston, Daniel T. C. Cox, Masashi Soga","doi":"10.1002/pan3.10556","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10556","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Gaining a comprehensive understanding of the human–nature interactions research landscape can benefit researchers by providing insights into the most relevant topics, popular research areas and the distribution of topics across different disciplines, journals and regions. The research literature on direct human–nature interactions is constituted from a rich and diverse spectrum of disciplines. This multidisciplinary structure poses challenges in keeping up with developments and trends. We conducted a multidisciplinary text‐analysis review of research on direct, sensory human–nature interactions to understand the main topics of research, the types of interactions, the disciplines within which they manifest in the literature, their growth through time and their global localities and contexts. Our analysis of 2773 articles showed that there has been recent growth in research interest in positive human–nature interactions that is biased towards high‐income countries. There is a substantial body of research on negative human–nature interactions, mostly from the medical fields, which is distinct from research on positive human–nature interactions in other fields such as ecology, psychology, social science, environmental management and tourism. Of particular note is the very large amount of medical research on the causes and consequences of snake bites, particularly in Asia. Understanding the relationship between these two contrasting types of interactions is of significant practical importance. More recent attention towards positive human–nature interactions in high‐income societies biases views of the relationship between people and nature. Research into human–nature interactions needs to take the next step towards a unified and holistic understanding of the benefits and costs of direct experiences with nature. This step is crucial to achieve a more sustainable future that benefits both biodiversity and human society, during great environmental and climatic change. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.","PeriodicalId":52850,"journal":{"name":"People and Nature","volume":"27 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135935054","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why reconnect to nature in times of crisis? Ecosystem contributions to the resilience and well‐being of people going back to the land in Greece","authors":"K. Benessaiah, K. M. Chan","doi":"10.1002/pan3.10546","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10546","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Multiple crises, including climate change, ecosystem degradation, economic, political and social upheavals, severely impact people's well‐being. Ecosystem services (or nature's contributions to people) play a key role during crisis that needs to be further elucidated. Most research focusses on the material benefits that ecosystems provide in times of crisis, paying less attention to intertwined intangible, nonmaterial dimensions. Yet, these intangible ecosystem benefits are often crucial for people's resilience and well‐being in times of need. We examine the role that nature plays for resilience and well‐being in times of crisis through a case study of Greece's back‐to‐the‐land movement during the European economic crisis. We conducted semistructured interviews with 76 households that had gone back‐to‐the‐land to understand why people sought to reconnect to nature and what their experiences were. Our results show that reconnecting to nature provided material ecosystem benefits such as food and income often from previously undervalued ecosystems (e.g. abandoned orchards) as well as nonmaterial ecosystem benefits such as mental health, feelings of safety, calm and independence that helped people cope with the crisis and adapt and transform to new socio‐ecological contexts. Participants reported that reconnecting to nature also changed their relational values. People mentioned gaining new perspectives, meanings and relationships with others and the natural world. While the crisis significantly affected people's material well‐being, reconnecting with nature helped people cope with crisis but also prompted a profound reevaluation of what constitutes a good life, leading to changes in their subjective and relational well‐being. This enhanced their capacity to act and plan for the future (their agency). Overall, our research emphasizes how reconnecting to nature and its multidimensional ecosystem benefits during crises can have transformative effects on individuals' resilience, well‐being and their relationships with the environment. Our research shows that not only material benefits of ecosystem services need to be valued but also intangible, nonmaterial benefits that affect material, subjective and relational dimensions of well‐being and resilience. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.","PeriodicalId":52850,"journal":{"name":"People and Nature","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136033651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hanna L. Pettersson, George Holmes, Claire H. Quinn, Steven M. Sait, Juan Carlos Blanco
{"title":"Who must adapt to whom? Contested discourses on human–wolf coexistence and their impact on policy in Spain","authors":"Hanna L. Pettersson, George Holmes, Claire H. Quinn, Steven M. Sait, Juan Carlos Blanco","doi":"10.1002/pan3.10543","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10543","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Emerging nature restoration agendas are increasing the pressure on rural communities to coexist with expanding wildlife, including large carnivores. There are different interpretations of coexistence, stemming from divergent ways of conceptualising and relating to nature. Yet there is limited understanding of how and why certain interpretations become dominant, and how this influences conservation policy and practice. This question is highly relevant for the management of wolves in Spain. Until recently, the national strategy allowed certain regional autonomy in creating and enacting coexistence policy, including through culling and sport hunting. However, in 2021, the national government declared wolves strictly protected throughout the country, despite strong contestations about whether and why it was necessary. We studied the discursive processes that co‐produced this policy shift. First, we explored interpretations among communities that share, or will share, space with wolves, using qualitative field data. Second, we triangulated local interpretations with framings in public media to identify prominent discourses about coexistence. Third, we traced how these discourses interacted with Spanish conservation policy: who was heard and why. We highlight three prominent discourses: wolf protectionism, traditionalism and pragmatism, each proposing a distinct pathway to coexistence with wolves. Through our policy analysis, we illuminate a dominance of protectionism within national politics, which justified a centralised technocratic pathway while downplaying place‐based approaches. The resulting coexistence policy was highly contested and appears to have increased social conflict over wolves. Our findings reveal knowledge hierarchies within Spanish policy frameworks that promotes ‘mainstream’ conservationists' narrow interpretation of what nature and coexistence should be. This has perpetuated an apolitical approach that is focussed on mediating direct impacts from wolves, rather than conflicting worldviews, and that undermines efforts to promote dialogue and local stewardship. While our research is centred on Spain, the findings are of broad relevance since they reveal structural barriers that constrain the incorporation of diverse knowledge systems into conservation policy, and subsequent transformations towards socially just and locally adapted coexistence programmes. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.","PeriodicalId":52850,"journal":{"name":"People and Nature","volume":"117 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135759301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sam J. Kelly, John S. Kelly, Emma Gardner, John Baker, Chris Monk, Angela Julian
{"title":"Improving attitudes towards adders (<i>Vipera berus</i>) and nature connectedness in primary‐age group children","authors":"Sam J. Kelly, John S. Kelly, Emma Gardner, John Baker, Chris Monk, Angela Julian","doi":"10.1002/pan3.10545","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10545","url":null,"abstract":"Adder ( Vipera berus ) populations are experiencing declines in many countries, including the United Kingdom. Perceptions of adders and other venomous snakes are generally negative, making conservation of these species a challenge, and persecution remains within the top five perceived causes for adder declines in the United Kingdom. Improved understanding and attitudes are needed to support current conservation efforts. However, ensuring these positive attitudes continue into the future relies on addressing children's loss of connection to nature, and intervention at this early attitude‐formation stage can be crucial for traditionally ‘unpopular’ species, such as snakes.\u0000\u0000An adder‐focussed public engagement project, Adders are Amazing !, was carried out in Pembrokeshire, United Kingdom, in 2018–19 to improve understanding and attitudes towards adders using a blended science‐creative arts approach. The project included half‐day primary school‐based workshops to inform 111 pupils aged 8–11 about adder ecology, alongside creative art experiences. Questionnaires were used to measure the children's attitudes towards adders and their nature connectedness both before and after the workshops and these were compared with equivalent questionnaires carried out at a control school (57 pupils) where no workshops were conducted.\u0000\u0000The project demonstrated that engagement that blends both art and science can significantly change attitudes towards adders without any direct contact with the animals themselves; specifically, participants' scores for ‘Wonder’, ‘Learning Interest’ and ‘Conservation Concern’ increased. The workshops also significantly increased measures of the children's general connectedness to nature (specifically, ‘Enjoyment of Nature’ and ‘Responsibility for Nature’).\u0000\u0000We recommend conservation bodies focus on, and not shy away from, so‐called ‘unpopular’ species, to promote understanding and acceptance of these species and support their conservation. Blended arts–science initiatives, which can be easily adapted to suit a wide range of species and the artistic practices of local communities, are an effective way to achieve this.\u0000\u0000Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.","PeriodicalId":52850,"journal":{"name":"People and Nature","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136212147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Christine E. Wilkinson, Tal Caspi, Lauren A. Stanton, Deb Campbell, Christopher J. Schell
{"title":"Coexistence across space and time: Social‐ecological patterns within a decade of human‐coyote interactions in San Francisco","authors":"Christine E. Wilkinson, Tal Caspi, Lauren A. Stanton, Deb Campbell, Christopher J. Schell","doi":"10.1002/pan3.10549","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10549","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Global change is increasing the frequency and severity of human‐wildlife interactions by pushing people and wildlife into increasingly resource‐limited shared spaces. To understand the dynamics of human‐wildlife interactions and what may constitute human‐wildlife coexistence in the Anthropocene, there is a critical need to explore the spatial, temporal, sociocultural and ecological variables that contribute to human‐wildlife conflicts in urban areas. Due to their opportunistic foraging and behavioural flexibility, coyotes ( Canis latrans ) frequently interact with people in urban environments. San Francisco, California, USA hosts a very high density of coyotes, making it an excellent region for analysing urban human‐coyote interactions and attitudes toward coyotes over time and space. We used a community‐curated long‐term data source from San Francisco Animal Care and Control to summarise a decade of coyote sightings and human‐coyote interactions in San Francisco and to characterise spatiotemporal patterns of attitudes and interaction types in relation to housing density, socioeconomics, pollution and human vulnerability metrics, and green space availability. We found that human‐coyote conflict reports have been significantly increasing over the past 5 years and that there were more conflicts during the coyote pup‐rearing season (April–June), the dry season (June–September) and the COVID‐19 pandemic. Conflict reports were also more likely to involve dogs and occur inside of parks, despite more overall sightings occurring outside of parks. Generalised linear mixed models revealed that conflicts were more likely to occur in places with higher vegetation greenness and median income. Meanwhile reported coyote boldness, hazing and human attitudes toward coyotes were also correlated with pollution burden and human population vulnerability indices. Synthesis and applications : Our results provide compelling evidence suggesting that human‐coyote conflicts are intimately associated with social‐ecological heterogeneities and time, emphasizing that the road to coexistence will require socially informed strategies. Additional long‐term research articulating how the social‐ecological drivers of conflict (e.g. human food subsidies, interactions with domestic species, climate‐induced droughts, socioeconomic disparities, etc.) change over time will be essential in building adaptive management efforts that effectively mitigate future conflicts from occurring. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.","PeriodicalId":52850,"journal":{"name":"People and Nature","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136359532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Samuel Wearne, Ella Hubbard, Krisztina Jónás, Maria Wilke
{"title":"A learning journey into contemporary bioregionalism","authors":"Samuel Wearne, Ella Hubbard, Krisztina Jónás, Maria Wilke","doi":"10.1002/pan3.10548","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10548","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Bioregioning is a new wave of bioregional discourse that appears to be attracting interest among sustainability researchers and practitioners. Through interviews with contemporary leaders and a reflexive research process, we explored bioregioning experiences across seven countries. Our paper outlines the motivations, practices and narratives that we encountered and positions these observations against prior expressions of bioregional thought and broader themes in sustainability research. We found that in bioregioning, the concept of a bioregion remains important and seems to attract people to the discourse in three ways: It inspires visions of the future that encompass more‐than‐human thriving, it creates a conceptual container that enables a strategic narrative for change that connects places to larger scales, and it justifies the importance of everyday people exercising their right to ‘do’ something. The combination of these motivators shows bioregioning's relationship with earlier expressions of bioregional thought: Like early bioregional thinkers, regional scales carry cognitive and strategic appeal, and like critical bioregionalism, power and justice are foregrounded to ensure the process of change is ethical. We suggest that in the shift to bioregioning, the bioregion serves as a boundary device, justifying (for some) a focus on regional scale action which has made bioregional discourse unique, and for others, rationalising participatory or emotional priorities. This lets bioregioning enact a dialogic approach to change and enables practitioners to consider questions of scale in open dialogue with emotive place‐based dynamics, bringing nature re‐connection and social–ecological systems research into consideration and overlap with the practice of bioregioning. We observed parallels between our research process and the central features in bioregioning; both respond to ambitions and calls within sustainability to enact relational values and surface contextualised knowledge while also valuing generalisations and abstraction. Our study, we suggest, provides one example of how research into human–nature relationships in Western sustainability might be pursued in line with these ambitions. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.","PeriodicalId":52850,"journal":{"name":"People and Nature","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136359529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}