Joern Fischer
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 3589213 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Joern Fischer |
| NOMBRES | Joern |
| APELLIDO | Fischer |
| FIRMA | FISCHER J |
| AFILIACIONES | Leuphana University of Lüneburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3187-8978 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 77 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 517 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 77 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2006 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 13 |
Co-designing futures
Landscapes worldwide are rapidly changing, driven by land-use practices that threaten social–ecological sustainability. While the need for transition to a more sustainable landscapes is widely recognized, questions remain about what constitutes a desirable future landscape and how to achieve it, particularly when policy priorities differ from local aspirations. Addressing these issues requires place-based approaches that enable stakeholders to ne…
Leveraging change in ecosystem restoration
Restoration requires mindset shift from linear thinking to systems thinking • Restoration can be a gateway to trigger regenerative system dynamics • Leverage points perspective to move from repairing isolated features to regenerating social–ecological wholes • In western Rwanda, a shade coffee corridor could boost regenerative dynamics Despite calls for more integrated ecosystem restoration approaches, many restoration projects continue to focus …
Multifaceted landscapes for grassland restoration
Reconnecting humans and nature, along with reversing the trend of biodiversity loss, are among the most pressing challenges of our times. Grassland restoration offers a promising pathway to halt and reverse biodiversity decline. Since local people are central to maintaining biodiversity and equally benefit from nature, transdisciplinary and social-ecological approaches to restoration are key to achieving sustainable outcomes. These approaches go …
Ecosystem Restoration Across Political Regimes
International bodies like the United Nations increasingly champion ecosystem restoration as a key tool to combat environmental degradation. Democratic governance is often positioned as a key element of restoration “success.” We compiled a list of restoration “successes” from the UN Restoration Flagship Program and used the Economist Democracy Index to classify each according to the regime type under which restoration took place. Surprisingly, mos…
Mapping Social Cohesion in Restoration Landscapes
Social cohesion is increasingly recognized as essential for effective ecosystem restoration, yet it remains underexplored in practice. We mapped social relationships in restoration landscapes of Western Rwanda. Using Net-Map-based interviews and participatory workshops, we evaluated horizontal and vertical cohesion. Restoration approaches strengthened trust, collaboration, and communication within communities, key drivers of knowledge exchange an…
Resilience and regeneration for a world in crisis
Both resilience and regeneration are relevant concepts in sustainability science. Resilience thinking has led to improved understanding of cross-scale cycles of growth and renewal, regime shifts, and planetary boundaries. Regeneration highlights the role of positive, place-based and partially self-perpetuating social-ecological dynamics and seeks to foster mutualistic relationships between human and more-than-human entities. This paper lays out s…
A coffee corridor for biodiversity and livelihoods
Around the world, restoration activities are underway to halt and reverse ecosystem degradation. A key challenge is to identify restoration approaches that work for both people and nature – i.e. approaches that can sustain livelihoods as well as biodiversity. Here, we focused on a mosaic landscape in western Rwanda. The landscape features two strictly protected remnant patches of Afromontane rainforest (Gishwati and Mukura forests), which are of …
‘Chains of leverage’ as way to identify and foster transformative potential
We propose the framework of ‘chains of leverage’. It is an operationalisation to understand and analyse the transformative potential of social‐ecological systems and identify leverage points for sustainability transformations through a concrete four‐step approach. Step 1 : Analysing the social‐ecological system regarding its core elements across system depth. Elements in a system can be situated at different system depths (from shallow to deep) r…
Applying social-ecological system resilience principles to the context of woody vegetation management in smallholder farming landscapes of the Global South
Woody vegetation diversity is declining due to human-induced land-use changes, mainly agricultural expansion and intensification, deforestation, forest degradation and urbanisation.This loss challenges the resilience and sustainability of smallholder farming landscapes, in which woody vegetation plays an important role for the provision of multiple material and non-material benefits to people and nature.In this review, we examine the relevance an…
Future ecosystem service provision under land-use change scenarios in southwestern Ethiopia
Continued pressure and transformation of land-use by humans are key drivers of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) loss. To determine the sustainability of possible future land-use practices, it is important to anticipate likely future changes to biodiversity and ES. This can help stakeholders and decision-makers to understand and assess the viability of current development policies and design alternative future pathways. Focusing on a biodi…
Mainstreaming regenerative dynamics for sustainability
The social–ecological ladder of restoration ambition
Expanding in both scope and scale, ecosystem restoration needs to embrace complex social–ecological dynamics. To help scientists and practitioners navigate ever new demands on restoration, we propose the “social–ecological ladder of restoration ambition” as a conceptual model to approach dynamically shifting social and ecological restoration goals. The model focuses on three dynamic aspects of restoration, namely degrading processes, restoration …
Navigating social–ecological changes
Participatory co-learning for human–wildlife coexistence
As wildlife habitats become increasingly fragmented, sharing landscapes with wildlife is becoming difficult and complex. Because stakeholders with diverging interests struggle to collaborate to manage human–wildlife interactions, new approaches are needed. Here we reflect on a novel participatory learning program we implemented with farmers in communal conservancies in the Zambezi region of Namibia. The 9 week program aimed to understand why huma…
A social-ecological approach to support equitable land use decision-making
Human-driven land use change can result in unequitable outcomes in the provision and appropriation of ecosystem services (ES). To better address equity-related effects of land use change in decision-making, analyses of land use and ES changes under different land use management alternatives should incorporate ecological and social information and take a disaggregated approach to ES analysis. Because such approaches are still scarce in the literat…
Bridging scenario planning and backcasting
Many landscapes in sub‐Saharan Africa have undergone rapid changes, often with negative social and ecological impacts. Avoiding (or reversing) such negative impacts requires proactive landscape planning. Scenario planning, a participatory approach that generates narratives of plausible landscape change trajectories in the future, has been widely used to support landscape planning and decisions. However, not least because of challenges arising fro…
Response diversity as a sustainability strategy
Resilience principles and a leverage points perspective for sustainable woody vegetation management in a social-ecological system of southwestern Ethiopia
Addressing ecosystem destruction and unsustainable development requires appropriate frameworks to comprehensively investigate social-ecological systems. Focusing on woody plant management in southwestern Ethiopia, we combined social-ecological resilience and a leverage points perspective to (1) assess how stakeholders perceive and operationalize resilience principles; (2) investigate resilience challenges and solutions across different levels of …
Drivers of ecosystem service specialization in a smallholder agricultural landscape of the Global South
The global shift toward agricultural specialization in the 20th century led to unprecedented ecological and socioeconomic changes, both positive and negative, in rural landscapes. Economic theory describes comparative advantage and market participation as two important drivers of such changes. Landscapes in the Global South are still often characterized by subsistence agriculture and direct dependence on natural ecosystem processes. Agricultural …
The programme on ecosystem change and society (Pecs) – a decade of deepening social-ecological research through a place-based focus
The Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS) was established in 2011, and is now one of the major international social-ecological systems (SES) research networks. During this time, SES research has undergone a phase of rapid growth and has grown into an influential branch of sustainability science. In this Perspective, we argue that SES research has also deepened over the past decade, and helped to shed light on key dimensions of SES dyna…
Using a leverage points perspective to compare social-ecological systems
A leverage points perspective recognises different levels of systemic depth, ranging from the relatively shallow levels of parameters and feedbacks to the deeper levels of system design and intent. Analysing a given social-ecological system for its characteristics across these four levels of systemic depth provides a useful diagnostic to better understand sustainability problems, and can complement other types of cause-and-effect systems modellin…
Advancing research on ecosystem service bundles for comparative assessments and synthesis
Social-ecological interactions have been shown to generate interrelated and reoccurring sets of ecosystem services, also known as ecosystem service bundles. Given the potential utility of the bundles concept, along with the recent surge in interest it is timely to reflect on the concept, its current use and potential for the future. Based on our ecosystem service bundle experience, expertise, and ecosystem service bundle analyses, we have found c…
Operationalising the leverage points perspective for empirical research
The role of perceptions and social norms in shaping women’s fertility preferences
The population–environment–food nexus is a sustainability challenge for the Global South, and for Africa in particular, where rapid human population growth typically overlaps with high levels of food insecurity and environmental degradation. In this context, it is important to understand the reasons driving high fertility in these regions. Here, we examined possible determinants of women’s fertility preferences in rural southwestern Ethiopia. Usi…
Earth stewardship
Transformation toward a sustainable future requires an earth stewardship approach to shift society from its current goal of increasing material wealth to a vision of sustaining built, natural, human, and social capital—equitably distributed across society, within and among nations. Widespread concern about earth’s current trajectory and support for actions that would foster more sustainable pathways suggests potential social tipping points in pub…
Leverage points for sustainability transformation
Ecosystem services as a boundary object for sustainability
The duration and durability of cabinet ministers
This article surveys the growing research programme on the duration of cabinet ministers. It examines some of the conceptual and methodological issues confronting research, including the nature and measurement of durability, ministerial terms and techniques. It considers some of the theories and hypotheses that have been generated by researchers. Using evidence from studies from around the world, it argues that institutional factors, including re…
Reconnecting with nature for sustainability
Calls for humanity to 'reconnect to nature' have grown increasingly louder from both scholars and civil society. Yet, there is relatively little coherence about what reconnecting to nature means, why it should happen and how it can be achieved. We present a conceptual framework to organise existing literature and direct future research on human-nature connections. Five types of connections to nature are identified: material, experiential, cogniti…
Advancing sustainability through mainstreaming a social–ecological systems perspective
Artificial intelligence, systemic risks, and sustainability
Automated decision making and predictive analytics through artificial intelligence, in combination with rapid progress in technologies such as sensor technology and robotics are likely to change the way individuals, communities, governments and private actors perceive and respond to climate and ecological change. Methods based on various forms of artificial intelligence are already today being applied in a number of research fields related to cli…
Identifying governance gaps among interlinked sustainability challenges
Sustainability issues cannot be separated from their social and biophysical context, and collaborative governance responses to interdependent sustainability issues are inherently complex. Governance gaps emerge when responsible actors fail to recognize how multiple issues and actors are interlinked. Closing governance gaps is particularly challenging for sustainability issues that intersect several sectors of society, such as livelihoods, agricul…
The importance of ecosystem services for rural inhabitants in a changing cultural landscape in Romania
Hartel, T., J. Fischer, C. Câmpeanu, A. I. Milcu, J. Hanspach, and I. Fazey. 2014. The importance of ecosystem services for rural inhabitants in a changing cultural landscape in Romania. Ecology and Society 19(2): 42. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06333-190242
The Push and Pull of Ministerial Resignations in Germany, 1969–2005
When and why are cabinet ministers forced out of office? We argue that ministerial resignations cannot be understood as mechanistic consequences of serious personal or departmental errors as the classical responsibility hypothesis implies. Rather, they follow a systematic political logic. Cabinet ministers have to resign whenever the prime minister perceives the political costs of a minister staying in office to be higher than the benefits of kee…
Inside-out sustainability
In the context of continuing ecosystem degradation and deepening socio-economic inequality, sustainability scientists must question the adequacy of current scholarship and practice. We argue that pre-occupation with external phenomena and collective social structures has led to the neglect of people's 'inner worlds'-their emotions, thoughts, identities and beliefs. These lie at the heart of actions for sustainability, and have powerful transforma…
Collaboration or fragmentation? Biodiversity management through the common agricultural policy
Post-Cabinet Careers of Regional Ministers in Germany, 1990–2011
The study of ministerial careers in Germany is rather new. So far it has been mainly restricted to the federal level and to the career pathways up until cabinet exit. This article, by contrast, concentrates on the post-cabinet careers of regional ministers. Drawing from the scarce literature we first sketch out career patterns of regional ministers prior to and during their time in the regional cabinet. The main focus, though, is on the post-cabi…
Linkages between Parliamentary and Ministerial Careers in Germany, 1949–2008
Delegation theory assumes strong direct links between the parliamentary majority and the government in parliamentary democracies. Based on a data set of career characteristics for all federal cabinet ministers in Germany 1949 to 2008, we test whether the Bundestag serves as the dominant recruitment pool throughout the period, whether party membership of ministers is a sine qua non, and whether non-party members and/or non-MPs seek membership as s…
A holistic approach to studying social-ecological systems and its application to southern Transylvania
Hanspach, J., T. Hartel, A. I. Milcu, F. Mikulcak, I. Dorresteijn, J. Loos, H. von Wehrden, T. Kuemmerle, D. Abson, A. Kovács-Hostyánszki, A. Báldi, and J. Fischer. 2014. A holistic approach to studying social-ecological systems and its application to southern Transylvania. Ecology and Society 19(4): 32. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06915-190432
European Integration and Prime Ministerial Power
It is commonly assumed that European integration empowers prime ministers at the expense of cabinet ministers and parliamentary actors. This article follows the suggestion that an increase in cabinet reshuffles indicates power shifts in favour of the PM, and studies reshuffles in two countries that have been involved very differently in the process of European integration, Germany and Sweden. It hypothesises that if European integration empowers …
Applying a capitals approach to understand rural development traps
Leverage points for improving gender equality and human well-being in a smallholder farming context
How transformative processes could be facilitated to improve gender equality and consequently, human well-being, is a key question for moving towards a just and sustainable future. Focusing on southwestern Ethiopia where significant changes in formal institutions related to gender have occurred, we applied the concept of systemic leverage points. We show that changes in formal structures facilitated changes in perceived visible gender gaps, such …
The role of scenarios in fostering collective action for sustainable development
Response diversity as a sustainability strategy
The impacts of social-ecological system change on human-nature connectedness
Social factors mediating human–carnivore coexistence
Navigating conflicting landscape aspirations
Using photography to elicit grazier values and management practices relating to tree survival and recruitment
Human–nature connectedness and other relational values are negatively affected by landscape simplification
Landscape simplification is a worldwide phenomenon that impacts biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Humans benefit greatly from nature’s contributions to people in both material and immaterial ways, yet landscape simplification can undermine these contributions. Landscape simplification can have negative consequences, for example, for human–nature connectedness and other relational values. Major and rapid land-use change, together with a dec…
The influence of landscape change on multiple dimensions of human-nature connectedness
Riechers, M., Á. Balázsi, D. J. Abson, and J. Fischer. 2020. The influence of landscape change on multiple dimensions of human–nature connectedness. Ecology and Society 25(3):3. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11651-250303
The Push and Pull of Ministerial Resignations in Germany, 1969–2005
When and why are cabinet ministers forced out of office? We argue that ministerial resignations cannot be understood as mechanistic consequences of serious personal or departmental errors as the classical responsibility hypothesis implies. Rather, they follow a systematic political logic. Cabinet ministers have to resign whenever the prime minister perceives the political costs of a minister staying in office to be higher than the benefits of kee…
Landscape modification and habitat fragmentation
Landscape modification and habitat fragmentation are key drivers of global species loss. Their effects may be understood by focusing on: (1) individual species and the processes threatening them, and (2) human‐perceived landscape patterns and their correlation with species and assemblages. Individual species may decline as a result of interacting exogenous and endogenous threats, including habitat loss, habitat degradation, habitat isolation, cha…
Adaptive capacity and learning to learn as leverage for social–ecological resilience
Adaptive capacity is increasingly recognized as essential for maintaining the resilience of social–ecological systems and for coping with environmental change. Four main requirements enable societies to successfully adapt to change: (1) the will and intention to maintain social–ecological resilience, (2) knowledge about current problems and the desired direction of change, (3) proactive behavior, and (4) the capacity to change existing patterns o…
Should agricultural policies encourage land sparing or wildlife-friendly farming?
As the demands on agricultural lands to produce food, fuel, and fiber continue to expand, effective strategies are urgently needed to balance biodiversity conservation and agricultural production. “Land sparing” and “wildlife-friendly farming” have been proposed as seemingly opposing strategies to achieve this balance. In land sparing, homogeneous areas of farmland are managed to maximize yields, while separate reserves target biodiversity conser…
Linkages between Parliamentary and Ministerial Careers in Germany, 1949–2008
Delegation theory assumes strong direct links between the parliamentary majority and the government in parliamentary democracies. Based on a data set of career characteristics for all federal cabinet ministers in Germany 1949 to 2008, we test whether the Bundestag serves as the dominant recruitment pool throughout the period, whether party membership of ministers is a sine qua non, and whether non-party members and/or non-MPs seek membership as s…
Australian Graziers Value Sparse Trees in Their Pastures
The temperate grazing region of southeastern Australia is experiencing a rapid decline in tree cover that threatens key ecosystem functions. Graziers are stewards of most of the trees remaining outside reserves, and hold the power to reverse the decline. Influencing graziers’ decision making about vegetation management requires an understanding of their landscape values. We asked 25 graziers to photograph features they considered significant on t…
Using photography to elicit grazier values and management practices relating to tree survival and recruitment
I Take Political Responsibility!’
How is the doctrine of ministerial responsibility applied in the decisions of German ministers (not) to resign? This question arises from an empirical puzzle as well as from a theoretical contradiction. Despite the prominent principle of ministerial responsibility, empirically, the ‘personal consequences' of ministerial scandals in their area of responsibility, display a large variance. Some ministers resign because of rather trifling affairs, ot…
Human behavior and sustainability
Sustainability demands changes in human behavior. To this end, priority areas include reforming formal institutions, strengthening the institutions of civil society, improving citizen engagement, curbing consumption and population growth, addressing social justice issues, and reflecting on value and belief systems. We review existing knowledge across these areas and conclude that the global sustainability deficit is not primarily the result of a …
Conservation policy in traditional farming landscapes
Many traditional farming landscapes have high conservation value. Conservation policy in such landscapes typically follows a “preservation strategy,” most commonly by providing financial incentives for farmers to continue traditional practices. A preservation strategy can be successful in the short term, but it fails to acknowledge that traditional farming landscapes evolved as tightly coupled social–ecological systems. Traditionally, people rece…
The duration and durability of cabinet ministers
This article surveys the growing research programme on the duration of cabinet ministers. It examines some of the conceptual and methodological issues confronting research, including the nature and measurement of durability, ministerial terms and techniques. It considers some of the theories and hypotheses that have been generated by researchers. Using evidence from studies from around the world, it argues that institutional factors, including re…
European Integration and Prime Ministerial Power
It is commonly assumed that European integration empowers prime ministers at the expense of cabinet ministers and parliamentary actors. This article follows the suggestion that an increase in cabinet reshuffles indicates power shifts in favour of the PM, and studies reshuffles in two countries that have been involved very differently in the process of European integration, Germany and Sweden. It hypothesises that if European integration empowers …
Cultural Ecosystem Services
Milcu, A. Ioana, J. Hanspach, D. Abson, and J. Fischer 2013. Cultural ecosystem services: a literature review and prospects for future research . Ecology and Society 18(3):44. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05790-180344
Land Sparing Versus Land Sharing
To address the challenges of biodiversity conservation and commodity production, a framework has been proposed that distinguishes between the integration (“land sharing”) and separation (“land sparing”) of conservation and production. Controversy has arisen around this framework partly because many scholars have focused specifically on food production rather than more encompassing notions such as land scarcity or food security. Controversy furthe…
Putting meaning back into “sustainable intensification”
In light of human population growth, global food insecurity is an escalating concern. To meet increasing demand for food, leading scientists have called for “sustainable intensification”, defined as the process of enhancing agricultural yields with minimal environmental impact and without expanding the existing agricultural land base. We argue that this definition is inadequate to merit the term “sustainable”, because it lacks engagement with est…
Ecosystem services as a boundary object for sustainability
Navigating conflicting landscape aspirations
Post-Cabinet Careers of Regional Ministers in Germany, 1990–2011
The study of ministerial careers in Germany is rather new. So far it has been mainly restricted to the federal level and to the career pathways up until cabinet exit. This article, by contrast, concentrates on the post-cabinet careers of regional ministers. Drawing from the scarce literature we first sketch out career patterns of regional ministers prior to and during their time in the regional cabinet. The main focus, though, is on the post-cabi…
A holistic approach to studying social-ecological systems and its application to southern Transylvania
Hanspach, J., T. Hartel, A. I. Milcu, F. Mikulcak, I. Dorresteijn, J. Loos, H. von Wehrden, T. Kuemmerle, D. Abson, A. Kovács-Hostyánszki, A. Báldi, and J. Fischer. 2014. A holistic approach to studying social-ecological systems and its application to southern Transylvania. Ecology and Society 19(4): 32. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06915-190432
The importance of ecosystem services for rural inhabitants in a changing cultural landscape in Romania
Hartel, T., J. Fischer, C. Câmpeanu, A. I. Milcu, J. Hanspach, and I. Fazey. 2014. The importance of ecosystem services for rural inhabitants in a changing cultural landscape in Romania. Ecology and Society 19(2): 42. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06333-190242
Advancing sustainability through mainstreaming a social–ecological systems perspective
Applying a capitals approach to understand rural development traps
The role of scenarios in fostering collective action for sustainable development
Reviving wood-pastures for biodiversity and people
Social factors mediating human–carnivore coexistence
Ecology (45 obras) · Geography (42 obras) · Environmental resource management (37 obras) · Political science (34 obras) · Biology (32 obras) · Business (31 obras) · Economics (31 obras) · Sociology (30 obras) · Sustainability (26 obras) · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (25 obras)