Publications
This page holds a list of the latest journal articles, and links to the SERI-Background Papers and SERI-Archive section
Pulp and participation: Assessing the legitimacy of participatory environmental governance in Umkomaas, South Africa
March, 23 2023 | Article | Environmental justice | Hali Healy
Ecological Economics
How legitimate are participatory environmental governance processes in the South African pulp and paper industry?
The Sappi Saiccor mill in Umkomaas, KwaZulu Natal (KZN) Province, is a global pulp and paper producer. It is also a major emitter of noxious substances in the heavily polluted and historically marginalised South Durban area, notoriously dubbed "cancer valley". Can the mill's corporate community engagement initiatives be seen as legitimate in the face of ongoing emissions, state complicity, and a long history of sidelining community health concerns? This article argues that they cannot, and that the onus remains on civil society to force...
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Only Radical is Realistic Now: International Carbon Rationing in a Climate Emergency
April, 20 2022 | Article | Biodiversity | Joachim Spangenberg
Hot or Cool Institute - Think Piece series
We need to stop regarding the climate emergency as a stand-alone environmental problem.
Climate disruption and biodiversity collapse are but two symptoms of the environmental crisis caused by ever-growing resource consumption. Multiple overshoots of Earth’s planetary boundaries have pushed our natural systems close to or even beyond critical tipping points. Effective reduction of resource consumption, in particular fossil fuels, is now an immediate necessity for civilisation to survive and must be reached within less than a decade. Since traditional policies have failed, and the time pressure is extreme, new instruments for...
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Social innovation for biodiversity: A literature review and research challenges
January, 7 2022 | Journal article | Biodiversity | Rafael Ziegler, Joachim Spangenberg
Ecological Economics
New ways to tackle biodiversity loss through social innovation
Alongside the news about the ecological crisis, there are also stories about new ways on how individuals and communities are changing their behaviour to address the current loss of biodiversity. In this paper, SERI members worked with an international team of authors to examine social innovations regarding actions of the civil society used to mitigate biodiversity loss. Innovation is usually attributed to technological change, which at the same time can also imply negative ecological impacts. In contrast, social innovation can address the reasons of biodiversity loss...
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