Evidence of anticipatory forest use behaviours under policy introduction: a systematic map protocol.

Background: Forest conservation is a major global policy goal, due to the role forests play in climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation. It is well recognized that the introduction of policies, whether aimed at forest conservation or with other objectives, has the potential to trigger unintended outcomes, such as displacement or leakage, which can undermine policy objectives. However, a set of outcomes that has escaped detailed scrutiny are anticipatory forest use behaviours, emerging when forest stakeholders anticipate policy implementation, deploying for example pre-emptive forest clearing, resulting in detrimental environmental outcomes. Lack of understanding of the extent and sectorial scope of these behaviours prevents us from devising strategies to address their potential detrimental consequences. Methods: This protocol presents the methodology that will be followed to conduct a systematic map to identify, compile, review and describe the evidence available on anticipatory forest use behaviours in the context of policy introduction around the world. We will use two complementary search strategies, which we have tested before submitting this protocol. First, a systematic bibliographic search, and second, a citation chase approach. We will include articles based on a pre-defined set of criteria defined according to a Population, Intervention and Outcome (i.e. PIO) design. To support identification of knowledge gaps and clusters, we will report results of the systematic map in a narrative synthesis, an evidence atlas and other visualisations. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13750-023-00307-0.

How context affects transdisciplinary research: insights from Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Transdisciplinary research (TDR) has been developed to generate knowledge that effectively fosters the capabilities of various societal actors to realize sustainability transformations. The development of TDR theories, principles, and methods has been largely governed by researchers from the global North and has reflected their contextual conditions. To enable more context-sensitive TDR framing, we sought to identify which contextual characteristics affect the design and implementation of TDR in six case studies in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and what this means for TDR as a scientific approach. To this end, we distinguished four TDR process elements and identified several associated context dimensions that appeared to influence them. Our analysis showed that contextual characteristics prevalent in many Southern research sites-such as highly volatile socio-political situations and relatively weak support infrastructure-can make TDR a challenging endeavour. However, we also observed a high degree of variation in the contextual characteristics of our sites in the global South, including regarding group deliberation, research freedom, and dominant perceptions of the appropriate relationship between science, society, and policy. We argue that TDR in these contexts requires pragmatic adaptations as well as more fundamental reflection on underlying epistemological concepts around what it means to conduct "good science", as certain contextual characteristics may influence core epistemological values of TDR. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-022-01201-3.