abstract: My research is motivated by a rule of thumb that no matter how well a system is designed, some actors fail to fulfill the behavior which is needed to sustain the system. Examples of misbehavior are shirking, rule infraction, and free riding. With a focus on social-ecological systems, this thesis explored the effectiveness of social feedback mechanisms driven by the two available individual options: the exit option is defined as any response to escape from an objectionable state of affairs; and the voice option as any attempt to stay put and improve the state. Using a stylized dynamic model, the first study investigates how the coexistence of participatory and groundwater market institutions affects government-managed irrigation systems. My findings suggest that patterns of bureaucratic reactions to exit (using private tubewells) and voice (putting pressure on irrigation bureaus) are critical to shaping system dynamics. I also found that the silence option – neither exit nor voice – can impede a further improvement in public infrastructure, but in some cases, can improve public infrastructure dramatically. Using a qualitative comparative analysis of 30 self-governing fishing groups in South Korea, the second study examines how resource mobility, group size, and Ostrom’s Design Principles for rule enforcement can co-determine the effectiveness of the voice option in self-controlling rule infractions. Results suggest that the informal mechanism for conflict resolution is a necessary condition for successful self-governance of local fisheries and that even if rules for monitoring and graduated sanctions are not in use, groups can be successful when they harvest only stationary resources. Using an agent-based model of public good provision, the third study explores under what socioeconomic conditions the exit option – neither producing nor consuming collective benefits – can work effectively to enhance levels of cooperation. The model results suggest that the exit option contributes to the spread of cooperators in mid- and large-size groups at the moderate level of exit payoff, given that group interaction occurs to increase the number of cooperators. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Environmental Social Science 2020

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More than 3,5 billion people currently lives in cities, a number that is expected to increase further. The densification of cities makes it increasingly difficult for people to access natural areas, at the same time as biological diversity is threatened. In this study, we highlight the importance of urban ecosystem services through social and ecological aspects. This study presents a summary of different evidence-based solutions that contribute with urban ecosystem services. It moreover uses a case of urban development in Slakthusområdet (Meatpacking district), Stockholm, in order to describe contemporary processes that integrate solutions that contribute to urban ecosystem services. The results show that there are challenges in implementing these solutions with respect to political, economic, and market factors. The study thereby identifies how examining authorities and policy demands on a green factor tool enable ecosystem service solutions. By studying ecosystem services as part of a social-ecological system, this study ultimately contributes with knowledge on the execution of multifunctional solutions, which are becoming ever more important with the densification of cities around the globe. / Över 3,5 miljarder människor är idag bosatta i städer, och i framtiden förväntas den siffran öka. Förtätningen av städer försvårar människornas tillgång till naturområden samtidigt som den biologiska mångfalden hotas. I den här studien understryker vi de urbana ekosystemtjänsternas roll utifrån sociala och ekologiska aspekter. Härigenom presenterar den här studien en sammanställning över olika evidensbaserade gröna lösningar som bidrar med urbana ekosystemtjänster. Vidare tar den här studien avstamp i stadsutvecklingen av Slakthusområdet i Stockholm i syfte om att studera samtida processer kopplat till implementeringen av lösningar som bidrar med ekosystemtjänster. Resultatet pekar på att det finns utmaningar för implementering av lösningar som bidrar med ekosystemtjänster kopplade till ekonomi, politik och marknadslösningar. Därigenom identifieras kravet för grönytefaktor (GYF) och de granskande myndigheternas arbete med möjligheter för implementering av gröna lösningar. Genom att studera ekosystemtjänster som en del av ett social-ekologiska system bidrar den här studien med kunskap om tillämpningen av mångfunktionella lösningar, vilka blir allt viktigare i och med den ökade förtätningen av städer.

The pressure on natural resources in urban areas increases as cities grow in size and populations; however, informal institutions as norms and values by ‘common people’ can play a major role for protection of urban greens.  As the city of Bangalore, India, rapidly grows in size and population, its green areas are disappearing. In rural parts of India, local people’s notion of certain ecosystems as sacred has rendered the ecosystems protection and contributed to sustenance of ecosystem services’ generation. The aim of this paper is to explore the potential of stewardship of urban greens in a changing social context, focusing on religious beliefs and practices surrounding trees in Bangalore. It focuses on the cultural dimension of ecosystem services and connects previous research on sacred groves in rural areas with research on stewardship of urban greens. Methods include interview surveys with visitors to five focus sites of religious significance representing the city's four major religions; semi-structured interviews with key informants; and observations. Results show that on the Hindu sites -the study’s main focus- in the city, a range of trees were sacred themselves and revered through a set of practices. On the other sites, trees were rather an incorporated part of the land areas with religious significance. On all sites a set of cultural services was appreciated as generated by trees. Furthermore, visitors had a strong stake in the trees but the experienced levels of capacity to secure the trees’ protection differed between the sites. The study concludes that ‘common people’ are crucial stakeholders for ecosystem stewardship that ensures protection of the urban greens in Bangalore. The different religions in the city provide a multi-faceted protection of different types of urban greens. The level of protection is the outcome of a complex web of community values and norms, where sacredness is one included element.

Strong sustainability requires enhanced knowledge and understanding of complex social-ecological interactions, but it also implies a ‘novel’ conceptualization of the relationship between humans and nature, one in which individuals perceive themselves as embedded members of the Biosphere. The aim of this Licentiate thesis is to investigate the validity of a strategy that is centered on designing the urban green infrastructure to nurture such human-nature relationship in children’s attitudes. The research is framed by spatial cognition, conservation psychology, and social-ecological sustainability and it focuses on the validity of this strategy. Hence, the Licentiate analyzes how reoccurring experiences of nature that are situated in the everyday habitat (i.e. nature routines) affect personal human-nature attitudes and how these can be implemented as leverage points to change social-ecological systems using sustainable urbanism. Paper 1 tests the assumed link between the nature routines in Stockholm and preschool children’s development of cognitive and emotional affinity to nature. The results show that nature-rich routines over a period of four years are significantly correlated with the strength of preschooler’s affinity with nature. Paper 2 uses a mixed methods approach to evaluate changes in Connection To Nature (CTN) in 10 years olds who partake in a project of nature conservation. The results of Paper 2 show that there is an evaluative gap between theory and practice in connecting children with nature that impedes the evaluation of how children’s CTN changes over short periods of time and that impedes the creation of an evaluative framework for nature experiences. Paper 3 considers these empirical results in theorizing an approach to sustainable urban design based on social-ecological sustainability that includes CTN. In order to overcome existing limitations Paper 3 presents the concept of cognitive affordances as a theoretical tool to embed cognitive and emotional attitudes towards nature into the design of urban spaces. All combined these papers provide valid evidence that nature routines in cities, especially for children, can be a significant leverage point to enable future sustainable civilizations.

The designation of state and private protected areas around the world has been increasing over the past years. Belize is not an exception to this reality. To date more than 103 protected areas have been recognized into the National Protected Areas System of Belize (NPAS). Private protected areas (PPA) did not become part of Belize’s NPAS until 2015. But long before its legislation, private protected areas have been contributing to conservation and development in Belize. The Golden Stream Corridor Preserve (GSCP) is one of Belize’s exemplary PPA which advocates for conservation through the promotion of sustainable livelihood development and community empowerment. Using the co-evolution model by Pretzsch et al. (2014) as a conceptual framework, direct use values and benefits of the GSCP are assessed to gain insight into its social ecological system. A single case (embedded) case study design was used to execute this assessment at three buffering communities: Medina Bank, Golden Stream and Indian Creek. A total of 60 households, representing 10% of household leaders in each community were interviewed using a semi structured questionnaire. Community leaders were also interviewed to discover customary rules relating to resource use and the history of each community. The direct use value assessment revealed that the GSCP only contributes to values associated with tourism and employment. These values were disproportionately distributed across buffering communities; with Indian Creek perceiving all values associated with tourism, and Golden Stream from employment. Medina Bank saw no direct use values from the GSCP. Community forests and lands were found to be the exclusive source of direct use values associated with the utilization of forest products. Sustainable livelihood development opportunities and community empowerment were the most reported benefits arising from the management of the GSCP. The adoption and contribution of livelihood strategies were however met with positive and negative criticism by community members. Results from this evaluation epitomizes the importance of SES thinking in protected areas. Customary rules of resource use have contributed positively to the integrity of the GSCP. The impending threat of land use change and population growth at buffering communities calls for the creation of enabling environments for the adoption of sustainable livelihood through community participation, consultation, monitoring and evaluation.:CHAPTER ONE 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Research question and justification 2 CHAPTER TWO 2. Theoretical and conceptual framework 4 2.2 Ecosystem service approach in protected areas 7 2.3 Emergence of private protected areas: global status, definition, benefits and downsides 11 2.4 Social ecological co-evolution: a conceptual Framework 13 CHAPTER THREE 3.1 National Context: protected areas in Belize 17 3.2 Local context: The Golden Stream Corridor Preserve 19 3.3 Case study approach 23 3.4 Data collection 25 3.5 Data analysis 29 3.6 Ethical considerations 32 CHAPTER FOUR 4. Embedded case studies . 34 4.1 Case study 1: Medina Bank Village 46 4.2 Case study 2: Golden Stream Village 48 4.3 Case study 3: Indian Creek Village 62 CHAPTER FIVE 5. Consolidating and comparing the embedded cases CHAPTER SIX 6. Implications of findings for management 92 CHAPTER SEVEN 7. Conclusions, limitations and outlook 102 Limitation 103 Outlook 104 REFERENCES 108 ANNEXS 115

Sustainable governance of natural resources is challenged by the poor understanding of complex human-nature couplings. Major advancements in resilience theory, acknowledging the importance of social-ecological linkages and the self-organizing capacity of social-ecological systems, provides a new perspective on research in sustainability science. Yet, limitations in methods and data for integrated studies of social-ecological systems limit progress in science and management. This PhD project aims to generate and test specific hypotheses building on social-ecological systems theory using a variety of methods and a long-term, multidimensional empirical dataset of the Baltic Sea social-ecological fisheries system. In paper 1, we ask which factors have impacted change in fisheries patterns in the Baltic Sea over a 15 year period, 1995-2009. We conclude that the responses of fishers are largely driven by top-down management regulations, which has favoured increasing scale of operations and specialization, and that the capacity of fishers to engage in ecosystem stewardship is low. Resilience could be enhanced through an increased focus on governance actions that can stimulate the self-organising capacity of the system Paper 2 focuses on one particular fishery, whose long-term dynamics have been strongly driven by an ecological regime-shift in the Baltic Sea. High potential profits and weak control has raised suspicions of widespread misreporting in this fishery. By developing a new method for reconstructing catches, we suggest that under-reporting has been significant, and likely driven by high economic incentives created by ill-designed policy. This misreporting risks contributing to a negative feed-back that substantially alters   the management cycle, and thereby constitutes a part of a social-ecological trap in this fishery. The research within this project so far indicates that there are good prospects for using the Baltic Sea as case for integrated social-ecological studies, aiming at informing resilience theory. Some ideas on future direction of the research are outlined.

Literature has found that some minority groups with diabetes have a negative perception of medical professionals when a health problem occurs. This trend is particularly problematic with the diabetes epidemic in the United States. African Americans are more than 2 times as likely to die from diabetes than are Whites, and diabetes prevalence has increased exponentially in New York City where a majority of Afro-Caribbeans live. To address this problem, a cross-sectional design was used to recruit Afro-Caribbeans diagnosed with type 2 diabetes across 7 churches to examine whether shared knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors about diabetes screening and its complications exist, and whether they would attend a type 2 diabetes class or workshop at their church. A 114-item questionnaire, adapted from reliable and validated national health surveys, was administered to a convenience sample of 67 participants aged 35 to 90 to collect demographic, health, and cultural belief information. The conceptual frameworks of the social ecological and cultural consensus models were used for discovery of social influences and shared knowledge of type 2 diabetes. A cultural consensus analysis of 28 eligible participants was used to infer trustworthy answers to cultural questions. Participants demonstrated an above-average knowledge of type 2 diabetes, with a level of agreement of .52 ('.192 SD); further, 85.2% reported that they would attend a diabetes class or workshop at their church. These findings promote social change by educating Afro-Caribbeans about diabetes, and by facilitating partnerships between churches and doctors. Future community-based research with churches could help to improve glycemic control and delay the onset of type 2 diabetes.

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The city of Stockholm has set the goal to build 140 000 new residential units by 2030 to meet the demand of a growing urban population. Simultaneously we are seeing a decline in biodiversity in and surrounding the city. Some of the main factors are climate change, pollution, overexploitation and habitat destruction. As cities grow, they have the potential to aid or accelerate these problems, depending on how this urban growth is approached.In current urban development projects in Stockholm, we increasingly see large scale, high exploitation projects that view efficiency and profitability as their main goal. Biodiversity is largely considered an afterthought. We are chipping away at natural habitats and infrastructure, which has dramatic consequences for other species and ultimately ourselves.This thesis is a study on the city’s impact on biodiversity, and how new developments in Stockholm relate to our surrounding ecosystems. It is an investigation of how we, as urban dwellers, can live with nature. It is also an exploration of how we, as architects and urban planners, can shape cities for urban mutualism.