Description: This report discusses the Comparative Assessment of Peer Review (CAPR) project outcomes. Public funding agencies are required to demonstrate accountability to their government funders (e.g., Congress) as well as to the public. Some agencies - including the US National Science Foundation (NSF) - have used broader societal impacts criteria as part of the review process of grant proposals in order to connect scientific research to societal needs. But these agencies have often encountered questions from scientists and engineers for how to integrate such demands for broader societal impacts into their research proposals. In an effort to help clarify the idea of broader impacts, in 2010 NSF and Congress proposed a list of national needs that NSF-funded research would be required to meet. But was this the best solution? This report discusses the authors' research.

Description: This article discusses research on diverse perspectives in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve in Chile and their relevance for conservation. Relationships between humans and nature take multiple forms. This is a fundamental issue in conservation but one that is often neglected, leading to poor conservation outcomes. It is thus imperative that we come to understand better the complex relationships between humans and nature. To do so, we need to examine "nature" and the often assumed dichotomy between humans and nature. The authors conducted a qualitative social research inquiry to explore the societal relationships with nature in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve in Chile. From the results, the authors developed a framework that illustrates how different "natures" are created in the three-way relationship among the individual, society and the physical world. The authors further discuss the implications of the co-existence of various "natures" in one place. Their explicit consideration bears important potential for improving conservation practice. The framework can then serve as a heuristic tool for uncovering and addressing challenges in other conservation contexts.

Description: This article discusses local versus global knowledge. A case study of socio-ecological research conducted in Puerto Williams, Chile reveals that persons belonging to different sociocultural groups in Cape Horn have a diversity of perspectives and relationships with nature. For example, a strong sense of home and belonging was expressed by the indigenous Yahgan community and by old residents, mostly descendents of early twentieth-century colonizers. However, people identified with resource use did not include positive answers for a sense of home. The concept of common land presented marked contrasts among respondents. Those identified with a cultivating type of relationship favored private property over public land. For respondents identified with an embedded type of relationship, freedom of movement was one of their most essential values. Some respondents identified with resource use and those identified with intellectual and aesthetic relationships with nature also valued common land. The approach used in this study transforms polarized and dichotomous notions into gradients of perspectives related to different degrees of local and global ecological and cultural environments. The resulting hybrid vision of perspectives on nature may be helpful in times of global change, where both local and global scales contribute to identify specific problematic asymmetries as well ...

Description: This article discusses the road to biocultural ethics. As a child, Ricardo Rozzi visited indigenous communities in the high Andes with his grandfather and was enchanted by their close relationship with the natural world. Later, he and his wife would return to the region to explore the traditional ecological knowledge of the world's southernmost indigenous people.

Description: This article discusses Senda Darwin Biological Station (SDBS). SDBS is a field research center immersed in the rural landscape of northern Chiloé island (42°S), where remnant patches of the original evergreen forests coexist with open pastures, secondary successional shrublands, Sphagnum bogs, Eucalyptus plantations and other anthropogenic cover types, constituting an agricultural frontier similar to other regions in Chile and Latin America. Since 1994, the authors have conducted long-term research on selected species of plants (e.g., Pilgerodendron uviferum) and animals (e.g., Aphrastura spinicauda, Dromiciops gliroides) that are considered threatened, poorly known or important for their ecological functions in local ecosystems, and on ecosystems of regional and global relevance (e.g., Sphagnum bogs, North Patagonian and Valdivian rain forests). Research has assessed the responses of species and ecosystems to anthropogenic land-use change, climate change, and the impact of management. During this period, more than 100 scientific publications in national and international journals, and 30 theses (graduate and undergraduate) have been produced by scientists and students associated with SDBS. Because of the authors' understanding of the key role that humans play in ecological processes at this agricultural frontier, since the establishment of SDBS the authors have been committed to creative research on the communication ...