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Friday, December 05, 2025

Social justice should not be tokenistic but at the heart of global restoration efforts

University of East Anglia

Social justice must be at the heart of global restoration initiatives - and not “superficial” or “tokenistic” - if ecosystem degradation is to be addressed effectively, according to new research.

Led by researchers the University of East Anglia (UEA) the study sought to explore what can make restoration effective for people and nature. Publishing their findings today in Nature Sustainability, they argue that placing social justice at the centre of restoration practice remains vital to success, with ecological targets aligned to local social, economic and cultural ones.

Around the world, almost all kinds of ecosystems have been degraded and converted, eroding both the biological and cultural foundations of human wellbeing. It is estimated that 3.2 billion people have already been adversely affected by land degradation and there are growing concerns for the future food security of all.

This crisis has driven pledges, funding and programs for wide-scale ecological restoration, often as part of biodiversity and climate policy.

The team, led by Prof Adrian Martin, Dr Neil Dawson and Prof Iokiñe Rodriguez of UEA’s School of Global Development, reviewed the published literature on restoration in theory and case studies of practice worldwide. They found a need to reflect on, and reframe how, restoration is defined and implemented.

“In the face of the climate and biodiversity crisis, global targets for the restoration of degraded lands have become ever more ambitious and urgent,” said Prof Martin. “Whilst placing justice at the heart of restoration practice is increasingly accepted, there is an unfortunate tendency to address justice in superficial ways, through tokenistic forms of participation and benefit-sharing.

“Restoration projects are often very short-term and ecologically focused. Many different initiatives are being labelled restoration and it is often assumed all must be doing good, but the core focus tends to be ensuring in the short term that the ecosystem is restored in some way - replanted, reforested, rewetted, species reintroduced etc.

“We know from many years of experience that externally led forms of conservation can have negative impacts on communities, so safeguarding rights, securing land tenure, ensuring consent and protecting cultural identity is important.”

The UN Decade on Restoration 2021-2030 - which has influenced pledges to restore a billion hectares of degraded land - and other major programmes have principles for engaging local communities and providing fair benefits, with projects often including incentives or compensations such as resources and training for alternative livelihood options.

However the team, which included researchers at the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy, Queen Mary University of London and the University of Sheffield, found there is a significant gap between what is considered good practice in global guidelines and what is happening on the ground.

There is growing evidence that this inadequate attention to social dimensions is undermining ecological outcomes, while major global reviews have consistently found that restoration is more successful where governance is based around local institutions and leadership.

Based on the results of their analysis, the authors propose a categorisation of the extent to which justice is integrated into restoration practice, from shallow to deep forms of engagement.

Specifically, they say designing and implementing transformative restoration projects requires a reorientation of focus to the relationships, knowledge systems and structures that are foundational to restoration practice. There should be increased attention to revitalising communities, their knowledge and institutions and ensuring their stewardship is central to more holistic and long-term thinking and approaches.

Prof Rodriguez said: “Success will depend on how implementation programmes are designed and, in particular, whether ecological targets are aligned with local social, economic and cultural ones.

“We are concerned that progress made in gaining global commitments, securing billions in funding, and developing ecological know-how has not been matched by progress in how to meaningfully incorporate social justice into restoration practice.

“Too often there is a superficial consideration of justice, creating unjust interactions and outcomes which impede the effective long-term restoration and protection of both nature and human wellbeing.

“However, there are increasing numbers of ‘bright spots’ of just and transformative restoration, many involving Indigenous Peoples, and these case studies provide evidence of what works and illustrate how deeper justice leverage points are actionable in practice.”

The authors cite the successful example of kelp forest restoration initiatives in the Haida Gwaii archipelago of British Columbia. This saw external conservation scientists working with local communities to identify Indigenous values of nature, then adapting the design of the intervention to focus on local norms such as respect, responsibility, interconnectedness, balance and seeking wise council.

'Towards just and transformative social–ecological restoration’, Adrian Martin, Neil Dawson, Iokiñe Rodríguez, Rajanya Bose and Isabel Cotton, is published in Nature Sustainability on December 12.

Journal

Nature Sustainability

DOI

10.1038/s41893-025-01702-w

Article Title

Towards just and transformative social–ecological restoration

Article Publication Date

5-Dec-2025

Environmental crime growing sharply across Western Balkans, watchdog warns

/ pics_kartub via Pixabay

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By Clare Nuttall in Glasgow December 3, 2025

Environmental crime has become one of the fastest-growing illicit economies in the Western Balkans, fuelled by corruption, weak law enforcement and a lack of public awareness, according to a new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).

The study says environmental crime is now “among the most lucrative transnational criminal activities in the world”, generating an estimated $110bn-281bn annually” and expanding at a rate of 5-7% per year. All major types of environmental offences — from illegal logging and wildlife trafficking to hazardous-waste dumping and industrial pollution — are found across the region.

Air pollution, river contamination and unregulated construction are taking a heavy toll on ecosystems and public health. The report notes that in Serbia alone, “6,592 people die prematurely each year due to ambient air pollution.”

GI-TOC identifies hotspots across the six Western Balkan states. Illegal logging is widespread in Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro, while Albania and Bosnia face severe river pollution. Montenegro has emerged as a key transit point for wildlife trafficking. Serbia’s mining hub of Bor is singled out for “dangerously high concentrations of toxic metals in the air and water”.

Albania’s Ishem–Erzen river basin is contaminated with cadmium and lead at levels “exceeding EU standards by more than 100 times,” the report says.

Low indictments, high impunity

Despite the scale of damage, prosecutions remain rare. “Some types of environmental crime leave few or no traces, are easily concealed, or are deliberately covered up … This makes it difficult to bring cases to court,” the report warns.

Prosecutors often deprioritise such offences. In Serbia, the authorities recorded only 13 environmental crime indictments in 2021, a strikingly low figure for a country with some of Europe’s worst air pollution. Across the region, indictments remain limited: Albania registered 80 cases that year, Bosnia 256, Kosovo 471, Montenegro 166 and North Macedonia 113.

Interviewees “consistently emphasised that the number of indictments does not reflect the actual scale of environmental harm,” GI-TOC writes. In Bosnia, the data shows very few convictions.

One case in Zenica detailed in the report illustrates the obstacles. A citizens’ association, Eko Forum, filed a criminal complaint against a local steelworks for pollution, but more than five years later, prosecutors suspended the investigation. The prosecutor’s office argued that the companies had made efforts to address the issue and that “there was no deliberate wrongdoing”.

The report concludes that political interference is a key barrier to justice. Experts interviewed said “political corruption prevents court proceedings from taking place and satisfactory verdicts from being reached.”

Criminal markets

GI-TOC documents a series of major criminal schemes. In Bosnia, authorities uncovered the illegal import and dumping of “hundreds of tonnes of waste from Italy”. Kosovo is losing more than 700 hectares of forest annually to illegal logging and wildfires, while Montenegro faces “financial losses amounting to €20bn through forest-concession mismanagement”.

In North Macedonia, Lake Ohrid is threatened by fish poaching and regulatory capture, while Skadar Lake in Montenegro is a hotspot for illegal construction and wildlife poaching.

The report stresses that its focus on criminal markets reveals dynamics often absent from traditional climate assessments, describing the study as “a complementary but more targeted perspective on the region’s environmental vulnerabilities”.

Grass-roots groups, environmental journalists and local activists are at the forefront of exposing abuses. GI-TOC highlights “the crucial role of civil society, journalists and environmental activists, including women who have led long-standing resistance movements in defence of rivers and forests.”

But citizens frequently hesitate to report violations. “Citizens often fear reporting environmental crimes, especially when the offenders are powerful entities,” the report says.

Public awareness of reporting procedures remains low, prompting calls for nationwide campaigns.

All six Western Balkan states are candidates or potential candidates for EU membership, but the report says they have made “limited progress in… aligning their policies and legislation with the European Union acquis” in areas such as water management, chemicals and environmental crime.

GI-TOC warns that the region’s patchwork approach to environmental protection is insufficient. It calls for stronger institutions, better enforcement, coordinated action across agencies and a clear distinction between administrative and criminal offences.

“Tackling environmental crime requires strong international cooperation and a multi-stakeholder approach,” the authors write — including governments, civil society, academia, the private sector and local communities.

Without significant reforms, the watchdog concludes, environmental crime will continue to flourish in the Western Balkans, threatening biodiversity, public health and the region’s European integration prospects.

Wednesday, December 03, 2025

New camera traps snap nearly three times more images of endangered Sumatran tigers than before

In Sumatra, researchers captured almost three times as many images of critically endangered tigers as during previous surveys, which shows the positive impact of conservation efforts even outside of national parks

Frontiers

video:
Tigress with cub in the Leuser ecosystem. Credit: Figel et al. 2025, BKSDA-Aceh, DLHK. Please write to press@frontiersin.org for higher resolution video.
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Credit: Figel et al. 2025, BKSDA-Aceh, DLHK

Destroyed habitats, poaching, and prey depletion have dramatically reduced tiger habitats around the world. Today, tigers occupy just 5 to 10% of their historical habitats. But on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, an important population of critically endangered Sumatran tigers may persevere, a new Frontiers in Conservation Science study showed.

Using infrared cameras, researchers working on the island, have set out to estimate sex-specific population densities and tigers’ movements during three surveys.

“We documented a robust tiger population, apparently among the healthiest on the island,” said Dr Joe Figel, a conservation biologist, who works with Indonesian wildlife and forestry agencies. “For those on the ground, the onus now falls on us to double down and adequately protect them.”

Long-time tenants

In many ways, the Leuser ecosystem is ideal habitat for Sumatran tigers. Three times the size of Yellowstone National Park, it is the largest contiguous tiger habitat remaining in Sumatra. It’s made up of lowland, hill, and montane forests, of which 44% are classified as intact forest landscape. “It’s also more thoroughly patrolled by rangers than nearly any other place on the island,” Figel said.

Working with local collaborators from communities at the edges of the study area, the team put up cameras in the northern stretches of Leuser, located in Aceh province, and kept them there for three monitoring periods: 34 cameras were installed during March to May 2023, 59 cameras between June and December 2023, and 74 cameras between May and November of 2024.

“Multi-year camera trap monitoring is critically important for estimating key tiger demographic parameters such as survival, recruitment, tenure, and population growth rate,” explained Figel. “With these data – and only with these data – can we even begin to evaluate conservation efforts.”

During the monitoring periods, the team captured a total of 282 sufficiently clear images of Sumatran tigers to allow for the identification of individuals. Analyzing stripe patterns, the team identified 27 individuals from camera-trap images, including 14 females, 12 males, and one tiger of unknown sex. The relatively high number of tigers suggests there is adequate prey in the area to support tiger presence. Over the study period, female and male individuals were photographed an average of 14 and 16 times, respectively. High densities of female tigers indicate a healthy tiger social system and high-quality habitats, where they can raise about three litters of cubs over a decade. During the six-month session in 2023, three different sets of cubs were documented. Two tiger brothers photographed together as cubs were later spotted individually as adults.

Thriving tigers

Inside the Leuser ecosystem lies Gunung Leuser Nation Park, however, the present study was conducted in forests provincially protected by the Aceh government. In Indonesia, provincially protected forests receive far fewer resources than national parks, which are supported and managed by the central government.

The camera traps placed by Figel and colleagues snapped nearly three times as many tiger images as during previous 90-day surveys at other sites in Sumatra, and the team was able to identify many more individuals than reported in earlier studies. Only three previous surveys – all carried out in protected national parks – documented more than 10 tigers in a single survey. Higher tiger density estimates than reported in the present study were only documented in an intensive protection zone in southern Sumatra.

The current study also provides valuable insights for future monitoring of tigers, the team said. The data on tiger movement collected here could, for example, inform survey protocols and optimal camera spacing.

The high numbers of tiger sightings reported here highlights a success story that is due to a multitude of factors, said the team. “Thanks to the work, activities, and support of government agencies, local Acehnese and Gayo communities, donors, and other researchers, Leuser has maintained important patches of lowland and hill forests where, in Sumatra, tiger prey densities reach their highest levels,” concluded Figel. “The persistence of these habitats and prey populations are the main reasons for our findings.”