Net-Map, an interview-based network mapping tool, has been applied across various scientific fields and purposes since its inception to study networks of influence. In this article, we first review the general uses and limitations of Net-Map and then share experiential knowledge gained from using Net-Map to develop an action-oriented research process focused on envisioning pathways to sustainable futures in Spanish drylands. Drawing from the literature and reflecting on our experience, we identified four practical contributions of Net-Map that support our action-oriented research process, including: 1) creating socially inclusive participatory spaces that capture a diversity of influential capacities for promoting sustainability transformations, 2) understanding how to articulate transformative changes at multiple scales, 3) anticipating conflicts and managing power imbalances across scales, and 4) building shared agency and capabilities for fostering collective action, while respecting differences between participants’ perspectives. This paper argues how Net-Map can help overcome common barriers in action-oriented research.

Addressing current environmental crises requires a fundamental shift in our relationship with nature. Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities can guide diverse pathways towards sustainable and just futures, rooted in ancestral knowledge and relational values that challenge the status quo. Indigenous knowledge and practices, however, are still largely underappreciated, not being recognized as agents of transformative change. Inspired by the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes approach, this research identifies types of initiatives driven by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. Through hierarchical cluster analysis of 127 initiatives from Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia, six groups of initiatives are revealed. Three out of these six groups, i.e., Empowering, Reconnecting people and nature, and Intercultural and ancestral education (named here as I-Seeds), apply knowledge co-design processes led by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities and have higher transformative potential. Such initiatives also implement amplification strategies of scaling deep that catalyze profound shifts in values and mindsets beyond the I-Seed. This study draws attention to the importance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities and their (retro)innovations to foster sustainability transformations.

Regional income trajectories are shaped not only by economic and social conditions, but also by the quality of the natural environment. This study examines the impact of environmental quality (EQ) on income growth in the Spanish Mediterranean region from 2015 to 2021, applying a beta convergence framework inspired by Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1992). To address spatial interdependencies and temporal dynamics, we employ a spatial seemingly unrelated regression (spatial SUR) approach. The results confirm significant beta convergence, with poorer municipalities growing faster. Environmental quality plays a pivotal role: higher coverage of natural protected areas (NPA) accelerates income growth and convergence, while nitrate-contaminated zones (NC) hinder both. This is the first spatial econometric analysis within the EU to assess the link between environmental quality and economic convergence at the micro-territorial level. The findings support stronger enforcement of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and call for a permanent environmental monitoring system to inform regional development policy and ensure that ecosystem conservation contributes effectively to inclusive and sustainable growth.

With intensifying climate change impacts on dryland regions, it is essential to better understand how actors relate to each other to sustainably manage natural resources. The literature on environmental governance networks has studied actor collaborations, but it is only starting to investigate networks that sustain conflictive situations. Moreover, while actors traditionally defined as powerful have received important scholarly attention, those who do not hold formal authority or key financial resources have not, as well as their sources of power. In this paper we analyse Net-Map data to better understand the sources of power of actor groups that traditionally are not perceived as influential, hence they are neglected in actor networks. We use social network analysis and a typology of power to understand these actors’ links in the networks, aiming to decipher what might explain why the traditionally neglected actors are perceived as particularly influential. We apply these methods to local sites in three case countries, all located in dryland regions. Net-Map workshops with diverse groups of participants were held with a focus on agricultural production systems. The results reveal that a broad variety of actors that traditionally have been, and still are, neglected in decision making domains, are perceived as particularly influential in their regions, pointing to the various modes in which power is understood and exercised. The competing interests over natural resources shed light on the role that conflictive tensions played in power relations. Through this work a broader understanding of power asymmetries in actor networks is gained.

Food production and trade are key drivers of environmental change worldwide. Global initiatives emphasize the need to shift towards healthier and more sustainable diets, with increased consumption of fruits and vegetables (F&V). However, F&V cultivation relies on diverse high-value crop species that often require intensive fertilization and irrigation for optimum yield and quality, as well as a large labor force. This generates trade-offs across scales between the impacts in the production regions and the global need to increase F&V production. Through multi-actor dialogues, we analysed the social-ecological dynamics of the F&V agriculture system in Southeast Spain, which crucially supplies F&V to Northern Europe. Using a new approach combining the 3Horizons method and system thinking tools, our results reveal the agricultural system's context-specific structures as a foundation for exploring transformative opportunities. We found that the agricultural system a) is sustained in a governance model that lacks cooperation and fosters polarized views, 2) surpasses the biophysical limits, and 3) relies on immigrant low-wage labor. Additionally, our results underscore the need to share the responsibilities and costs of the food-system transformation across the supply chain actors, focusing on the potential of retailers, governance institutions at multiple scales, collective structures of farmer producers, and auxiliary industries to support sustainable and just transformative changes.

Non-technical summary Achieving sustainability on the ground poses a challenge in decoding globally defined goals, such as sustainable development goals, and aligning them with local perspectives and realities. This decoding necessitates the understanding of the multifaceted dimensions of the sustainability challenges in a given context, including their underlying causes. In case studies from Brazilian drylands, we illustrate how an enhanced multiscale participatory method, combined with systems thinking tools, can shed light on systemic structures that currently entrench unsustainable development trajectories. This method offers insights into co-designing potential pathways toward sustainable futures and unlocking transformative capacities of the local population. Technical summary Translating United Nations global sustainable development goals (SDGs) into actions that address local realities and aspirations is an urgent challenge. It requires new thinking and approaches that foster the discussion about the main challenges to implementing the SDGs at multiple levels. This paper presents a novel multiscale participatory approach that combines the popular Three Horizons diagram with the formalism of causal loop diagrams in systems thinking. We present results from six multi-stakeholder dialogues held across drylands in Brazil with a focus on desired futures aligned with SDGs. Focusing on identifying the root causes and systemic structures of unsustainability, participants identified lock-ins, leverage points, and interventions for how these could be changed. The core lock-ins are the discontinuity of public policies, and the historical land and power concentration reinforced by the current expansion of large-scale agricultural, mining, and energy projects. The proposed interventions are structural and - if implemented - would contribute to achieving SDGs in an integrated manner. The unique approach developed in this study can provide leverage as it bridges the inclusivity of participatory visioning with the change potential of systems thinking tools to tackle root causes and unleash societal transformations. Social media summary We are not achieving SDGs. Understanding root causes of unsustainability is critical to move toward sustainable and just futures.

Transdisciplinary research (TDR) integrates academic and non-academic expertise to co-produce actionable knowledge that contributes to societal impact in addressing sustainability challenges. While context is widely acknowledged as important, the role and definition of context factors shaping TDR remain underexplored. This study develops an integrative understanding of context by synthesising theoretical literature and analysing 17 semi-structured interviews from international TDR case studies. We identify nine key context factors across three categories: outer factors (outside projects), inner factors (within projects), and temporal/ spatial dimensions (project boundaries). These context factors influence collaborative research processes in different ways across projects, requiring ongoing reflexivity and adaptation. Positionality awareness and ethics are central in shaping power dynamics, stakeholder engagement, and knowledge-co-production, highlighting the need for context-sensitive approaches. To support this in a structured way, we present a framework linking context with research design, process, methods and outcomes. Additionally, we provide a set of reflective questions for researchers and practitioners to identify, assess, and respond to contextual influences that shape stainability transformations. By advancing a more systematic understanding of context, this study contributes to building reflexive and inclusive approaches to transdisciplinary collaboration.

The Three Horizons for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a novel participatory approach to co-create future sustainable scenarios for supporting the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. Whereas the approach has been applied to inform the design of global-scale sustainability scenarios based on regional perspectives, it has not been implemented to explore how local and regional scenarios can be connected across sites and scales to inform governance processes in the implementation of the SDGs. This study applies an adapted version of the Three Horizons for the SDGs approach in four sites at regional and local scales in Spanish drylands to explore its potential to support policy coherence at multiple governance scales for advancing SDG implementation through dialogue between actors from multiple sectors. We conducted four two-day in-person workshops with diverse actors (n = 59) to explore their perceptions about the desired futures, current concerns, and strategies to achieve sustainable futures in the region. Results reveal 27 similar and nine dissimilar themes related to desired futures and current concerns, respectively. These findings provide common ground and highlight different contextual realities between sites that may serve as a basis for harmonizing policy priorities for advancing regional and local SDG implementation. The study also identifies 19 themes encompassing multiple strategies with the potential to establish associations across sites and scales to coordinate actions in alignment with the 2030 Agenda. We argue that the adapted version of the Three Horizons for the SDGs approach can serve as a tool to support coherent multi-scale governance needed to achieve global sustainability goals. We discuss lessons learned and limitations encountered from using the approach that provides guidance for future experiences.

Ecosystem services (ES) have gained significant attention in recent years from the global environmental initiatives that involve science and policy. Multiple scholars have analyzed how ES are integrated with environmental policies, plans, and strategic assessments. However, there is a lack of information on how countries translate these policies, plans and assessments into concrete environmental management actions that integrate an explicit ES approach. To help fill this gap, we analyze how the Colombian Regional Autonomous Corporations (CARs) have used the ES approach in their environmental management projects implemented between 2004 and 2015. This study aims to analyze the type and diversity of ES managed by the CARs, as well as the synergies, trade-offs, and bundles of ES prioritized by them. We used content analysis of the CARs reports and statistical analysis to explore whether CARs explicitly use the ES concept. Our results showed that provisioning, regulating, and cultural ES were similarly prioritized by the CARs, however, explicit mention of ES was limited. Regulating services showed remarkable potential for synergies, and there was a pattern of trade-offs between cultural and some regulating and provisioning services. We found three bundles of ES: Restoration and conservation of agrosystems, Mosaic of services and Farming and fibers occupying, respectively, 9, 36 and 55% of the total area of Colombia. Our findings show that multiple ES are targeted and affected by environmental management actions. The contribution of this study has the potential to inform adequately policy decisions to be used in environmental management and planning practices to prioritize areas for maximizing ES provision.

We examine social-environmental justice in forest governance by asking who is problematized as drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. We adapt Bacchi’s “What is the problem represented to be” approach to the community forest (CAF) model in Burkina Faso and the Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) in Vietnam and examine the implementation of these policies in specific sites through disaggregated focus group discussions (men, women, youth, ethnic minorities). We delve into the discursive, lived and subjectification effects of the policies’ problematizations, highlighting tensions and contestations relating to forest access and benefits. For both countries, what is left unproblematized in the implicit policy focus on the local is a “communal fix” of indigeneity tied to idealized and collective governance of fixed areas of land and exclusionary processes for those that do not fit the ideal. We argue that market-oriented approach in policies such as CAF and PFES absent of the wider underpinnings of the political and historical forest will only exacerbate social-environmental injustices.