Volume 2 Issue 7, July 2019

Car bans could contribute to both climate change and air-quality goals. However, most car bans announced to date lack enforcement mechanisms and are therefore not bans at all. Here, we provide recommendations to design car bans as a more-effective policy tool for sustainability.

The independent group of scientists (IGS) behind the forthcoming Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) have joined the ongoing negotiations in the lead-up to the September 2019 SDG Summit in New York. IGS co-chair Peter Messerli and IGS member Eeva Furman speak to Nature Sustainability about writing the report.

The long-term role of mountains as water providers to lowlands is threatened by shrinking glaciers due to anthropogenic climate change. Modelling this dependence and uncovering past indigenous responses can inform adaptive responses.

Understanding how individuals shift to diets with much smaller ecological footprints may help us in persuading more people to change their habits and transition to more sustainable food systems. Online interactions provide important answers.

It has long been observed that roads clear the way to deforestation in the tropics. Viewing deforestation scars in the Congo Basin from space, we can now model the impact roads have both inside and outside logging concessions.

Fairtrade and other voluntary sustainability standards are increasingly common in the food sector. Evidence shows that the benefits of such standards on the poorest people are minimal.

Understanding how people and ecosystems are connected is a continuing and vital challenge. This Perspective suggests many environmental problems revolve around common core challenges and advocates using network approaches that acknowledge key underlying assumptions.

Managing the interactions and impacts of scaled-up solar energy production will require understanding of the relationships between technological and ecological systems. This Perspective proposes a framework that could help engineer beneficial outcomes from an energy transition.

Ozone depletion has altered conditions at the Earth’s surface and interacts with climate change. This Review assesses the effects on humans and ecosystems, including implications for food and water security, and the mitigating and ongoing influence of the Montreal Protocol.

Implementation of a groundwater conservation policy in northwest India governing rice irrigation is linked to an increase in fires to clear agricultural residue, which itself worsens air quality in urban areas.

Mountain water resources are increasingly threatened. This study finds that a 1,400-year-old system for diverting headwater streams onto Andean slopes enhances the later water yield in downslope springs and estimates that upscaling this for Lima, Peru, could increase dry-season flows by 7.5%.

Climate change will affect Himalayan water resources. This study quantifies the importance of snow and glacier melt for agriculture on the Indo-Gangetic plain, finding that 129 million farmers depend on it, especially for rice and cotton, and that meltwater supports crops feeding 38 million people.

Wild plants anchor ecosystems and local economies. The iconic resin frankincense comes from Boswellia trees. This study documents the population collapse of B. papyrifera, the main frankincense source, throughout its range, suggesting conservation and restoration is vital.

Predators, including prawns, can suppress schistosomiasis by eating snail hosts. This modelling study finds that two prawn species in sub-Saharan Africa can reduce snail hosts and help control schistosomiasis at densities that maximize profits of associated aquaculture—a potential win–win.

To understand transitions to more sustainable diets, an analysis of over 240,000 online recipes, their user ratings and interviews finds an increase in vegan and vegetarian recipes, and in users switching to and keeping these diets.

Road length has almost doubled in 2003–2018 within the Congo Basin forests. Deforestation within 1 km of roads has increased greatly. Almost half of the roads within logging concessions were subsequently abandoned, but most roads outside concessions endured.

Distinguishing types of farm workers, an analysis of Fairtrade certification in the cocoa sector of Cote d’Ivoire finds that the standard improves the livelihoods of cooperative workers but makes little difference for wage labourers working on small farms.