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Despite increasing scientific understanding of the global environmental crisis, we struggle to adopt the policies science suggests would be effective. One of the reasons for that is the lack of inclusive engagement and dialogue among a wide range of different actors. Furthermore, there is a lack of consideration of differences between languages, worldviews and cultures. In this paper, we propose that engagement across the science-policy interface can be strengthened by being mindful of the breadth and depth of the diverse human-nature relations found around the globe. By examining diverse conceptualizations of "nature" in more than 60 languages, we identify three clusters: inclusive conceptualizations where humans are viewed as an integral component of nature; non-inclusive conceptualizations where humans are separate from nature; and deifying conceptualizations where nature is understood and experienced within a spiritual dimension. Considering and respecting this rich repertoire of ways of describing, thinking about and relating to nature can help us communicate in ways that resonate across cultures and worldviews. This repertoire also provides a resource we can draw on when defining policies and sustainability scenarios for the future, offering opportunities for finding solutions to global environmental challenges.

Growing concern about the loss of ecosystem services (ES) promotes their spatial representation as a key tool for the internalization of the ES framework into land use policies. Paradoxically, mapping approaches meant to inform policy decisions focus on the magnitude and spatial distribution of the biophysical supply of ES, largely ignoring the social mechanisms by which these services influence human wellbeing. If social mechanisms affecting ES demand, enhancing it or reducing it, are taken more into account, then policies are more effective. By developing and applying a new mapping routine to two distinct socio-ecological systems, we show a strong spatial uncoupling between ES supply and socio-ecological vulnerability to the loss of ES, under scenarios of land use and cover change. Public policies based on ES supply might not only fail at detecting priority conservation areas for the wellbeing of human societies, but may also increase their vulnerability by neglecting areas of currently low, but highly valued ES supply.

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In Argentina, agricultural expansion and intensification has stimulated the utilization of the ecosystem services (ES) approach to understand the consequences of land-use and land-cover changes. However, Argentina´s increasing trends of environmental degradation and social conflict due to agriculture continue unabated. We qualitatively analyzed 24 published ES studies done in either the temperate Pampean (context of consolidated agriculture) or subtropical extra-Pampean regions (context of expanding agriculture), in order to identify country-level and context-specific research needs and gaps, and propose ways to address them. We observed that ES studies in both contexts: (i) tended to focus much more on the biophysical, supply-side of the ES cascade than on the assessment of cultural ES and benefits, (ii) invested more effort in describing coarse ecological patterns/processes than in producing locally-adapted knowledge through stakeholder participation, and (iii) were poorly articulated with decision-making processes regarding sustainable ecosystem management. Despite this, some ES studies performed in the context of expanding agriculture showed incipient efforts to recognize, disaggregate and involve stakeholders, and to understand ES values. To increase the applicability of ES knowledge in decision-making, "strong" transdisciplinary approaches should be implemented so that changes in ES delivery and values feedback on management decisions for reverting environmental degradation.