This chapter outlines the different conceptual frameworks that can be used to better understand the evolving role nature has played in cities. It distinguishes between socioecological systems and urban political ecology, each of which influence how nature has been regarded and treated in different time periods and urban settings. It seeks to provide an overview of these concepts and explain their implications for how urban nature and nature-based solutions are constructed and viewed today as an urban policy issue. The chapter presents different approaches to understanding urban nature, nature-based solutions, and the relationship between nature and cities. It also discusses the emergence of urban nature and nature-based solutions as a response to urban sustainability challenges. The chapter engages with two case studies to illustrate its key messages: Urban Forest Strategy in Melbourne, Australia, and the Eco-Valley of Tianjin Eco-City in Tianjin, China.

Humans are part of Nature. Although the mind often separates them, the two were never apart. The nearest experience of Nature is land: land use and land cover (LULC). Various classifications have been proposed, based on averages and patterns of precipitation, sunshine, soils and others. Human activity has changed the land on earth significantly, which has in combination with natural processes often negatively affected its ecological and agricultural functions (degredation in the form of erosion, desertification, salinization). Ecology is the prime science of Nature: (models of) ecosystem dynamics, foodwebs, biodiversity, ecosystem services (ES) and their evaluation, and (ecological) resilience are at the heart of sustainability science. Ecosystem models provide insights into land restoration and preservation of biodiversity, in particular regarding impacts of and adaptation to climate change. Which actions are undertaken, individually and collectively, depends greatly on the perspective on Nature - they diverge and so do the policies and prospects.

The conservation status of the taxa in this book is measured using the criteria of the Red List of Threatened Species™. The Red List is overseen by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and categorises species according to extinction risk. This chapter summarises the history of the Red List and explains the criteria used to assess species’ extinction risk, as well as the quality control procedures in place today. This chapter also introduces a new part of the Red List, formalised in 2021: The Green Status of Species, a set of metrics which assess species’ progress towards functional recovery across its range and the impact of conservation actions.

Scientific methods to study how forests affect climate are distinguished as environmental monitoring, experimental manipulation, or modeling. Meteorological measurements of air temperature and wind speed in forests and adjacent clearings characterize microclimates. More complex measurements of energy, water, and carbon dioxide fluxes obtained using principles of eddy covariance required sophisticated instruments on tall towers extending above the forest canopy. In situ measurements of leaves and individual trees reveal physiological functioning and can be extrapolated to an entire forest. Whole-ecosystem manipulations that warm the soil or enrich the air with carbon dioxide provide insight to ecosystem responses to environmental change. Ecosystem studies monitor carbon and elemental stocks and fluxes, and watershed studies monitor water flows. Remote sensing instruments that acquire radiative signatures of the land provide an indicator of vegetation type, health, and productivity. Numerical models of terrestrial ecosystems and climate provide a means to test theories and develop understanding of the biosphere-atmosphere system.

The legal services market is commonly thought of as divided into two “hemispheres”—PeopleLaw, which serves individuals and small businesses, and BigLaw, which serves corporated clients. The last few decades have seen an increasing concentration of resources within the legal profession toward the latter, to the alleged detriment of the former. At the same time, the costs of accessing legal representation exceed the financial resources of many ordinary citizens and small businesses, compromising their access to the legal system. We ask: Will the adoption of new digital technologies lead to a levelling of the playing field between the PeopleLaw and BigLaw sectors? We consider this in three related dimensions. First, for users of legal services: Will technology deliver reductions in cost sufficient to enable affordable access to the legal system for consumer clients whose legal needs are currently unmet? Second, for legal services firms: Will the deployment of technology to capture economies of scale mean that firms delivering legal services across the two segments become more similar? And third, for the structure of the legal services market: Will the pursuit of economies of scale trigger consolidation that leads both segments toward a more concentrated market structure?

As the study of our “house,” ecology considers interactions between humans and our environments. Hutchinson noted modern society’s effects, including from overconsumption, on the major cycles of nitrogen, carbon, and other elements, foretelling research on the Earth system. A major driver is agriculture, including the scale of pesticide use, an alarm sounded by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring. Industrial agriculture keeps crop ecosystems in a perpetual early state, Odum contends, trading off calorie production for services provided by more-mature ecosystems, such as water purification. Holling showed that ecosystems can exist stably in different states and be resilient to impacts. Pastoral ecosystems may not have a single equilibrium state, as shown by Ellis and Swift, with implications for development. Species play various roles in ecosystems, and their loss can affect key services, as noted by Ehrlich and Mooney. Conserving biodiversity will benefit from Indigenous knowledge, argue Gadgil and colleagues, including knowledge of the shifting baseline of fisheries, notes Pauly. As Earth urbanizes, rural to urban gradients present a growing research opportunity, McDonnell and Pickett argue.

The Catholic Church holds the concept of natural law in reference to a created order. While this concept has been put aside in philosophy and science the Church deems that creation implies an inherent relationship between all its components. The Social doctrine of the Church is built on the concept of natural law accessible to human intelligence. The teaching of Thomas Aquinas drawing from Aristotle remains the main source of Catholic understanding of natural law. Natural law and natural rights are not to be confused. Right refers to a natural order of things, which is the natural law apprehended by reason at a given moment. The source of human rights is entailed in a measure inscribed in the order created by God. So natural rights are determined on the basis of what constitutes a just relationship between persons in accordance with natural law. The attention given today to the ecosystem including the biosphere and human society altogether brings us back to the core of natural law. The ecosystem witnesses to an order which pre-exists to our attempts to use it arbitrarily. ’Integral ecology’ apprehends the human being in its interdependence with the created order of the universe.

We find that most Asian economies are not very innovative by international standards, though in line with their level of development. Asian economies mostly obtain their technologies from abroad through FDI or via technological diffusion. However, FDI to Asia has been modest and entrepreneurship limited, largely as a consequence of the connections world. Politicians and business groups have been mutually supportive in erecting barriers to entry. As a result, most innovation has been within business groups or by new firms entering new sectors where existing business groups were absent or had not managed to erect unscalable entry barriers. However, three countries have developed some base for innovation: China, India and South Korea. In each, efforts to construct a supportive ecosystem, including policies for education, science and technology, as well as encouraging returning migrants with knowledge, are reaping dividends. Each has adopted a rather different model which we discuss in detail. Despite these achievements, the power and influence of the connections world in these three countries also remains a serious brake on their ability to innovate in the future.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) drug development is a complex process that proceeds from identification of a biological target; to testing of candidate therapies in in vitro assays; assessment of efficacy in animal models and assessment of safety in several animal species; clinical testing in humans in Phase1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 clinical trials; regulatory review by agencies in all countries in which the drug might be marketed; and eventual commercialization. This process requires more than a decade to accomplish. The process involves substantial infrastructure resources; multiple stakeholders; and funding from a variety sources along the developmental pathway. This is the complex ecosystem that supports AD drug development.

This chapter focuses on shelters and their significance for providing protection for living things from environmental factors such as seasonal weather changes, natural disasters, extreme weather events and climate change. An ecosystem is the name given to a group of interacting organisms in a particular environment – which could be a city street, a creek in dense bushland or a coral reef. The world contains a huge variety of ecosystems where living things interact and often compete for available resources such as water, air, light, food, space and the resources required to provide shelters. This chapter examines the notion of community and the physical shelters that organisms require for long-term survival. It presents common examples of shelters created by humans and other animals, and describes three integrated STEM projects designed for Australian primary school classrooms.

The concepts of peace and peacebuilding were basically developed by men, often with a realist background. This top-down approach has people as simple spectators. Only an engendered-sustainable peace will be able to deal with the present global environmental and climate change. "Engendered-sustainable peace" refers to the structural factors related to long-term violence, deeply embedded in the patriarchal system and characterized by authoritarianism, discrimination, exploitation, destruction, and violence. I define and address the cosmopolitan concept of "engendered-sustainable peace" and examine its foundations in theories of positive, structural, cultural, and sustainable peace. I then address power relations from realism to cosmopolitanism, including historical materialism and feminist understandings. I then discuss the potential of technology for peacebuilding and examine how a transition toward an "engendered-sustainable peace" opens an analytical tool that could be used by bottom-up efforts to overcome the present violence against women, men, children, and elders, including the environment and ecosystem services.

Here, I outline the various sources of energy that different life-forms use. The most fundamental division of life from an energy perspective is that between self-feeders that can utilize non-biological forms of energy such as light (autotrophs) and those that feed on other organisms (heterotrophs). Further subdivision of the autotroph category shows that not all of these organisms conduct what can be called ordinary photosynthesis – the type that yields oxygen. Some autotrophs conduct non-oxygenic photosynthesis, while others do not use light at all, but rather utilize chemical energy of various kinds in processes that are collectively called chemosynthesis. Next, I consider the flow of energy in ecosystems and note the limitations in the efficiency of energy transfer between trophic levels, but also the limitations of the trophic-level concept itself. Finally, I note that the biosphere is a realm of decreasing entropy: processes that contribute to this decrease include evolution, embryological development, and ecological succession. The decreasing entropy of the biosphere is perfectly compatible with the second law of thermodynamics as this law only applies to closed systems.