In recent decades, the concept of Ecosystem Services (ES) has generated a paradigm shift in the perspective of human society on nature and has had an important awareness-raising role concerning the importance of ecosystems. However, the concept has not been capable to stop the loss of biodiversity and nature in order to meet the societal challenges of ES provision, especially in urbanized territories. From the reviewed literature, it is obvious that implementing the ES concept within spatial design and planning processes poses several difficulties. In this context we state that a more comprehensive approach is needed of which the ES concept is part. To move to genuine landscape change and a shift in land use and land stewardship, we argue that a landscape design approach can play a significant activating role. The goal of this paper is to underpin this assumption from a theoretical and methodological point of view. The paper first gives an overview of the difficulties that the field of ES science and practice is facing when implementing the ES concept in landscape design and planning processes. Then a landscape design approach is presented as an alternative approach and a possible way forward for genuine landscape change to meet the societal demand for ES.

Safe space describes a classroom climate that feels secure, supportive, and risk-free so that students can honestly express their individuality and opinions without fear of being the target of violence harassment, or hate speech. In this paper, we examine the relationship between the school environment, individual characteristics and family in shaping students’ perceptions of safe learning environment. The Safe Learning Environment Survey was designed and distributed to a convenience sample of 360 undergraduate students at universities in Poland and Vietnam. Results reveal that neither sex nor family context affect students’ feeling of safety at school. However, there is a high association with nationality in feeling safe at school. Polish and Vietnamese students differ in their opinions why safe space should be enhanced as well as what the teacher and peers’ roles are in shaping safe atmospheres. These findings have significant implications for multicultural classes: understanding the factors that enhance school safety will help to form the collaborative and inclusive environment where students’ performance improves.

The present study discusses the role of NGOs in the efforts of the Indonesian Humanitarian Alliance for Myanmar (AKIM: Aliansi Kemanusian Indonesia Untuk Myanmar) to handle the humanitarian crisis experienced by Ethnic Rohingya groups in Myanmar in 2017. This phenomenon in Myanmar began to draw a lot of attention when the AKIM was able to contribute to the cause even though state actors and IGO attempts were blocked by the Myanmar government. In this case, NGOs were able to play a role outside the traditional structure of modern international relations that was inaccessible to state or international organizations (IGOs) or state governments. This phenomenon indicates that NGOs have more access to attempts to settle the humanitarian crisis being experienced by the ethnic Rohingya groups in Myanmar. This is notable because the Myanmar government has blocked the aid of other countries and IGOs and has denied the assistance offered by the United Nations. The qualitative method was used in this study, employing a case study model to observe the effects that occurred. During data collection researchers, used study documents, and then the data was processed through interpretive analytical techniques to draw conclusions and formulate a model for the study.

COVID-19 has elevated anew the import of holistically conceiving human-environmental well-being and tackling the overarching precarities of our ecologies, societies and public health in strategies of securitization. This paper considers the key challenge of reimagining securitization in the aftermath of COVID-19 and makes two core arguments. The first is that in addressing precarity a key starting point lies in being mindful of how it is differentially experienced across multiple social hierarchies in the human world. The paper draws upon Judith Butler’s work on ‘frames of seeing’ to consider how our current moment can elicit a contrapuntal concern for those who have always been precarious but not in view. The second core argument is that it is vital to move beyond a concern for human precarity to a concern for a broader sense of planetary precarity, which in turn prompts the need to strategize for a ‘more-than-human’ sense of security. Developing the concept of ‘human security’, the paper reflects on how we can usefully envision a ‘more-than-human security’ for a more biologically stable and sustainable planet.

In 2017 the Uganda Police Force (UPF) issued a Strategy for Community Policing (COP). The aim of the strategy is to provide a framework for the operationalisation of COP in the country. COP in Uganda is viewed both as a philosophy and an organisational strategy aiming at promoting new partnerships between the police and the community. This research examines how the UPF applies the COP strategy in Gulu Uganda to create new partnerships between the police and the community as part of the preparation for transforming Gulu into a city in Uganda. Anchored in qualitative research conducted in 2018–2019 in Gulu municipality, we examined COP in theory and practice. We fleshed out the different COP interventions installed by the police, observed how these applications of COP are perceived by the community and local leadership, and evaluated the extent to which these applications and perceptions contribute to creating new partnerships between the police and the public, as well as how these constitute an operationalisation of the UPF strategy for COP. There are several interventions labelled as COP in Gulu, including joint patrols, Mayumba Kumi, sensitisation activities, and partnerships with NGOs. Most of these applications are ‘old wine in new bottles’ and do not qualify as attempts to create new partnerships between the police and the public. In linkage to the mode of governance exercised by the Government of Uganda, the data collected indicates that the public at large still views the police as a corrupt, unpredictable, and a violent force that serves the interests of elites rather than a public service. As long as the police is viewed in such a way, it is difficult to create meaningful partnerships between the police and the public, and subsequently it becomes difficult to successfully apply the UPF COP strategy.

This paper explores the transition from military to civil security in post-militancy and subsequent militant operations in 2009 and the floods of 2010 in the Swat Valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan. Based mainly on qualitative interviews with local police and community women and men, the paper examines the shifting roles of the police over the course of these crises and how community-police relations are continuously negotiated.  Before the conflict, relations between the community and police were weak, and traditional institutions such as the jirga were functioning. Militants attacked both systems, targeting police, politicians, jirga leaders and education institutions. Following the military operation, the responsibility for security became a confusing institutional landscape of civil and military actors, which has reshaped community-police relations in Swat. Dichotomous distinctions between state and non-state, formal and informal institutions fall short in describing the everyday dynamic crafting of local institutions, particularly in a post-conflict context like Swat. New ‘hybrid’ institutions have emerged, initiated by both government and communities, with varying degrees of success in building trust and addressing peoples’ fears that militants may return. The results are relevant for both post-conflict development assistance and police and justice reform not only in the study area, but also in other post-conflict areas where states and communities find themselves re-negotiating their basic relationships.

Waste management and promotion of source separation by the public requires identification of the determinants of waste separation behavior, raising awareness, and reinforcing such behaviors. The present study aimed to determine the status of source separation behavior and identify the barriers, benefits, and factors affecting this behavior in Iran. This is a descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study conducted on 300 women selected through stratified sampling. The questionnaire applied included three sections. The validity and reliability of the self-made questionnaire were confirmed. In this study, descriptive statistics including the percentage, frequency, mean and standard deviation were used to describe the data, while chi-square and Fisher exact tests were applied to analyze the data. Logistic regression test was also used to determine the predictors of waste separation behavior. Only 17.7% of the respondents separated the wastes regularly. The age, level of education, benefits (OR = 6.746; 95% CI = 2.534–17.959), structural barriers (OR = 12.734; 95% CI = 3.516–46.119), motivation (OR = 9.613; 95% C I= 3.356–27.536), awareness (OR = 3.917; 95% CI = 3.351–11.356), and social norms (OR = 2.905; 95% CI = 1.030–8.191) were the determinants of source separation behavior. Considering the low participation rate in waste separation, efforts required to enhance such behavior need proper policy-making, training programs, and infrastructure to encourage the individuals to participate actively in waste separation. Educational interventions and campaigns are recommended to be designed to raise awareness and empower people.

Climate variability is variation of climate elements from the longterm mean state on all spatiotemporal scales. Climate variability affects microfinance institutions directly and indirectly through physical and transition risks. However, no studies have analyzed the effects of climate variability in relation to informal microfinance institutions. The study, therefore, aimed to analyze the effects of climate variability in relation to informal microfinance institutions. It used a descriptive study design and multi-stage sampling design. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis, descriptive analysis, and Kendall’s tau-b correlation analysis. The study found a positive trend in climate variability (τ_b = 0.174, α>0.05). Local people are highly vulnerable to climate variability as confirmed by 98.7% of the respondents who observed that climate variability affects their livelihoods. This vulnerability stems from the effect of climate variability on access to capital assets and livelihood strategies. Vulnerability to climate variability has a significant negative effect on loan repayment performance, loan access and sustainability, and hence on informal microfinance performance (τ_b = - 0.109**, P<0.01). Nevertheless, climate variability increases participation in informal microfinance institutions as shown by the positive relationship with the number of people who joined informal microfinance institutions (τ_b = 0.239**, P<0.01) and the number formed per year (τ_b = 0.137, P<0.01) from 1981 to 2018. This is because informal microfinance institutions help vulnerable households in building resilience to climate variability as observed by 80.8% of the respondents.. The characteristics of informal microfinance institutions have positive or negative relationships with vulnerability to climate variability. These relationships are and could be further leveraged upon to address effects of climate variability on informal microfinance institutions. Detailed contextual analysis of informal microfinance institutions in the nexus of climate variability is thus imperative to inform actions aimed at cushioning the groups and their members against the impacts.