From theory to practice: Applying multispecies justice in nature-based solutions and urban sustainability planning
- Submission status
- Open
- Submission deadline
Nature-based solutions research and planning efforts have demonstrated the challenges to and possibilities for supporting environmental justice outcomes in decision-making, commonly drawing upon issues of procedure, recognition and distribution of co-benefits and costs of environmental harms and benefits across diverse human communities. However, the achievement of targets in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, including the full integration of biodiversity and its multiple values into policies, regulations, planning and development processes (target 14), will require a rethinking of the subject of justice in NBS planning from one of ‘between us’ humans and other species to one of ‘all of us’.
The concept of ‘multispecies justice’ is a promising concept for NBS and urban sustainability planning because it invites us to understand the types of relationships between humans and other species that could produce and sustain economically, ecologically and socially just outcomes. However, to date there remains multiple knowledge gaps about how to apply multispecies justice in NBS planning.
This npj Urban Sustainability collection invites high quality case studies, comparative assessments, and conceptual or empirical advances for applying multispecies justice in NBS planning to reveal progress and advance research and action on justice, adaptation, and biodiversity conservation in ways that support multispecies needs. How can cities take the lead? What empirical examples of successes can be championed to create models for replication and scaling up multispecies and NBS approaches to transform cities for resilience, equity and sustainability? What can we learn from successes and difficulties in urban NBS initiatives to jointly address the wellbeing of humans and other species in urban territories?
There is a disconnect between NBS for biodiversity conservation and scholarships on animal rights, political science, design and urban and regional planning, all calling for improved representation and agency of diverse beings in urban sustainability planning. Aligning goals for solving justice and biodiversity issues requires a focus on people and their interactions with multiple species in cities and urban regions.
We welcome submissions from globally leading scholars on multispecies justice, nature-based solutions and urban sustainability. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Studies that uncover tensions and prospects in applying multispecies justice to NBS and urban sustainability
- Empirical case studies and analyses that demonstrate shifts in policy, planning, and new governance structures that can enable joint biodiversity and multispecies justice outcomes
- Examples of enabling governance measures to recognize, represent and give agency to humans and other species in nature-based solutions and urban sustainability planning
About the timeline
Please note the deadline of the 30th November 2024 is for completed draft papers submitted to the editors for review.
Editors
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David Schlosberg, PhD
Director, Sydney Environment Institute, Sydney University, Australia
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Christopher Raymond, PhD
Professor, Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, University of Helsinki, Finland
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Nora Fagerholm, PhD
Professor, Department of Geography and Geology, University of Turku, Finland
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Pauliina Rautio, PhD
Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Oulu, Finland
David Schlosberg, PhD, University of Sydney, Australia
David Schlosberg is Director of the Sydney Environment Institute and Professor of Environmental Politics at the University of Sydney, and the 2024 Erkko Visiting Professor of Studies in Contemporary Society at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. Schlosberg’s main theoretical interests are in environmental politics, environmental movements, and political theory, and in particular the intersection of the three with his groundbreaking work on environmental, ecological, and multispecies justice. His other theoretical interests are in climate justice, climate adaptation and resilience, and environmental movements and the practices of everyday life. Professor Schlosberg’s more applied work includes justice in adaptation and resilience planning, community-based food movements and policy, and community-based responses to climate disasters. He is the author, co-author, and co-editor of numerous books, including Defining Environmental Justice (Oxford, 2007), Sustainable Materialism: Environmental Movements and the Politics of Everyday Life (Oxford 2019), and the forthcoming Institutionalising Multispecies Justice (Cambridge 2024).
Christopher Raymond, PhD, University of Helsinki, Finland
Christopher Raymond is Professor of Sustainability Science at the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, University of Helsinki, Finland. His research focuses on conceptualizing the diverse values nature, assessing the co-benefits and costs of nature-based solutions and exploring different dimensions of justice pertinent to urban sustainability. He current leads the Enabling multispecies transitions of cities and regions (MUST) Strategic Research Council project and the Transformative Cities Research Council of Finland project. He is also Executive Director of the International Association for Society and Natural Resources, Leader of the Urban Theme of the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science and Associate Editor of npj Urban Sustainability. He supervises seven PhD students, advises on the Global Roadmap on Nature-based Solutions and was the Coordinating Lead Author of the IPBES Values Assessment (2018-2022).
Nora Fagerholm, PhD, University of Turku, Finland
Nora Fagerholm is Associate Professor in Human-Nature Interactions and Sustainability at the Department of Geography and Geology, University of Turku and Head of the Sustainable Landscape Systems Research Group. Her research focuses on participatory spatial planning and applying a geospatial approach in place-based assessments of people's perceptions on ecosystem services and landscapes. She is the Vice-Director of the Enabling multispecies transitions of cities and regions (MUST) project and Associate Editor of Landscape and Urban Planning. She supervises seven PhD researchers and is a founding member of the Participatory Mapping Institute.
Pauliina Rautio, PhD, University of Oulu, Finland
Pauliina Rautio is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Oulu. She is an established human-animal studies scholar focusing on multispecies education, inclusive ecological citizen science and co-creative methods. Rautio leads a transdisciplinary research group AniMate (est. 2016) and is a Principal Investigator of three funded projects on multispecies everyday lives: Citizens with Rats (Finnish Research Council, 2020-2024), Fellow Feelings (Eudaimonia institute, 2022-2025), and (Un)learning with other species as part of a major consortium MUST - Enabling multispecies transitions of cities and regions (Strategic Research Council, 2023-2026, PI Christopher Raymond). Rautio is a senior researcher in the Biodiverse Anthropocenes research programme at University of Oulu, Finland, an Editor-in-Chief of a peer-reviewed open access journal for human-animal studies Trace, and a board member of the Finnish Society for Human-Animal Studies. She currently supervises 10 doctoral researchers on environmental and multispecies topics, is a vice member of the Farm animal welfare council (Ministry of Agriculture, Finland) and runs a wildlife rehabilitation centre for injured wild birds at her home.
