People-Centered and Ecosystem-Based Knowledge Co-Production to Promote Proactive Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development in Namibia.

Growing levels of uncertainty and vulnerability generated by land use conversion and climate change set demands on local communities and national institutions to build synergies between the diverse array of knowledge systems in order to provide policy makers and practitioners with the best available information to decide what urgent actions must be taken. Science policy arenas and agreements such as the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recognize the importance of different types of knowledge and the need for broad stakeholder involvement, yet the use of indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) in environmental decision-making processes is still underdeveloped. This study involved working with local stakeholders, using the MARISCO method (adaptive MAnagement of vulnerability and RISks at COnservation sites) to carry out a systematic situation analysis of the existing socioenvironmental conditions. The assessments were conducted in the Kavango East Region in northern Namibia with the participation of inhabitants of the Khaudum North Complex, a protected area network covering wooded savannahs belonging to the Northern Kalahari sandveld. General outcomes of the assessments and evaluations made by the local stakeholders concerning the most critical drivers of degradation of the ecosystems appeared to support existing scientific knowledge of the study area, demonstrating that community-based assessments can provide valuable information about socioecological systems where scientific data are scarce. The findings of this study also highlight the importance of power dynamics for the implementation of participatory processes and the interpretation of their outcomes.

A global map of roadless areas and their conservation status.

Roads fragment landscapes and trigger human colonization and degradation of ecosystems, to the detriment of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. The planet's remaining large and ecologically important tracts of roadless areas sustain key refugia for biodiversity and provide globally relevant ecosystem services. Applying a 1-kilometer buffer to all roads, we present a global map of roadless areas and an assessment of their status, quality, and extent of coverage by protected areas. About 80% of Earth's terrestrial surface remains roadless, but this area is fragmented into ~600,000 patches, more than half of which are <1 square kilometer and only 7% of which are larger than 100 square kilometers. Global protection of ecologically valuable roadless areas is inadequate. International recognition and protection of roadless areas is urgently needed to halt their continued loss.

Foundations for self-awareness: An exploration through autism.

Developmental psychopathology holds promise for elucidating the structure of self-awareness. Here we studied social emotions in matched groups of children and adolescents with and without autism. Our aims were to determine whether there are potentially dissociable aspects of self-awareness, and to reconsider how the qualities of young children's engagement with other persons influences the development of their sense of self. Parent interviews yielded evidence that children with autism are limited in social-relational and emotional domains of self-awareness; for example, few were reported to show guilt, embarrassment, or shame. Yet according to parent report, most were affected by the moods of others, showed some degree of pity and concern, and manifested jealousy. When presented with videotaped scenes, participants with autism were similar to those without autism in identifying pride, guilt, and shame, and they were able to describe their own experiences of pride and, more rarely, guilt. In situations designed to elicit emotions, participants with autism were rated as showing pride, but they manifested lesser degrees and atypical qualities of guilt and coyness. Relatively few showed personal forms of self-consciousness when asked to pose for a photograph. We argue that in order for children to achieve depth in self-awareness, and to relate to themselves as occupying a distinctive stance within a framework of mutual self-other relatedness, they need to identify with the attitudes of other people. We interpret the present studies in terms of dissociations among three forms of social emotion: "person-centered" qualities of relational self-awareness that require identification and are specifically limited among children with autism, more diffuse modes of relational self-consciousness, and a third group of social emotions, epitomized by jealousy, situated in a separate developmental line. We propose a rebalancing of emotion theory that gives greater prominence to children's developing forms of interpersonal and intra-psychic relatedness.