Scholars publish more papers every year, but does that output actually add up to knowledge? In this episode, Michael sat down with three scholars who have been asking exactly that question within the field of environmental governance.

The guests are editors and contributors behind a special issue of Environmental Policy and Governance (Fall 2025), dedicated to the problem of scientific cumulation: whether research in this field is building on itself, or simply accumulating.

• Michael Rose — Senior Researcher, Leuphana University
• Jens Newig — Professor, Leuphana University
• Sina Leipold — Professor, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research

Michael Rose and Jens discuss their own contribution to the special issue, "How to Assess Knowledge Cumulation in Environmental Governance Research? Conceptual and Empirical Explorations," which analyzes the Earth Systems Governance (ESG) research community. Their findings are sobering: ESG research shows limited potential for knowledge cumulation, marked by a fragmented journal landscape, core-periphery citation structures, heterogeneous research questions, and few shared reference works, concepts, or frameworks.

The conversation also ranges across the special issue as a whole, which tackles the cumulation problem from several angles:

• Bibliometric analysis mapping how key concepts like "environmental governance process" are used inconsistently across research communities
• Methodology, including whether archetype analysis in social-ecological systems research can serve as a genuine building block for theory
• Why researchers chase novelty and what that costs the field
• Forest carbon offsetting in Uganda as a case study showing how even a small, focused body of literature can fail to accumulate when papers rest on incompatible theoretical assumptions
• Epistemological diversity, indigenous and local knowledge, and the role science-policy interfaces play in translating knowledge into practice in climate and biodiversity governance

Link to special issue:

Special issue: Knowledge Cumulation in Environmental Governance, Environmental Policy and Governance, Fall 2025

In this episode, Michael interviews organizers of the upcoming IASC 2027 conference: Yanti Kusumanto, Nurhady Sirimorok, and Micah Fisher. Together they discuss the conference's theme, sub-themes, and the significance of hosting it in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, a region with deep relevance to commons governance.

The conference website is live! For more information, go to https://2027.iasc-commons.org/

This is the first in a new series of episodes exploring each of the conference's subthemes, so stay tuned for more!

In this episode, Michael speaks with Thomas Falk, a researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Thomas works at the intersection of research and development, and for many years he has been designing and testing what he calls experiential learning games: structured, face-to-face exercises that help communities understand and address their shared resource challenges. Thomas employs games in the service of a key principle: that the best way to help communities manage their shared resources isn't to tell them what to do, but to create a space where they can figure it out for themselves. And that space, it turns out, can look a lot like a game.

In this conversation, Thomas discuss an important principle shared by many commons scholars: that communities are often better at identifying the right institutions for their own contexts than outside researchers are. The games he designs don't hand communities a solution. Instead, they help participants see the structure of their own collective problems clearly, often for the first time, and then work out the rules they want to live by together.

Michael and Thomas discuss how such games are run, the role of gender in collective decision-making, what it actually looks like to facilitate one of these sessions in a village in rural India, and what the evidence actually shows about whether any of this changes behavior in the real world.

Thomas would like to acknowledge the financial support for his work from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the CGIAR Policy Innovations Science Program, the CGIAR Gender Equality and Inclusion Accelerator, and the Co-Impact Philanthropic Funds.

References:

Falk, Thomas, Wei Zhang, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Lara Bartels, Richu Sanil, Pratiti Priyadarshini, and Ilkhom Soliev. 2023. “Games for Experiential Learning: Triggering Collective Changes in Commons Management.” Ecology and Society: A Journal of Integrative Science for Resilience and Sustainability 28 (1). https://doi.org/10.5751/es-13862-280130.

Janssen, Marco A., Thomas Falk, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, and Björn Vollan. 2023. “Using Games for Social Learning to Promote Self-Governance.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 62 (101289): 101289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2023.101289.

Steimanis, Ivo, Thomas Falk, Lara Bartels, Vishwambhar Duche, and Björn Vollan. 2025. “The Role of Women in Learning Games and Water Management Outcomes.” PNAS Nexus 4 (8): pgaf243. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf243.

In this episode Divya speaks with Rachel Carmenta, Associate Professor of Climate Change and International Development at the University of East Anglia. They discuss Rachel’s recent work on the poverty–biodiversity loss association (PBLA) and the idea of connected conservation. In this scholarship, Rachel and her colleagues critically examine how mainstream conservation narratives have often framed poor and rural communities as drivers of biodiversity decline, while overlooking the larger structural forces, such as extractive industries, unsustainable patterns of consumption, and unequal political and economic systems, that are central to environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. They also discuss how poverty is often reduced to income deprivation and how that framing has made conservation and development programs to focus heavily on cash-based incentives and payment schemes. Rachel argues that poverty is way more than income deprivation; instead, it must be understood as multidimensional, encompassing wellbeing, dignity, health, education, security, and access to social services. This broader understanding challenges narrow approaches to both poverty alleviation and conservation governance. Another important theme in their discussion is connected conservation, which emphasizes the interconnected relationships between people, ecosystems, livelihoods, cultural practices, and local knowledge systems, rather than viewing conservation and human wellbeing as separate or competing goals. In this context, Rachel reflects on biocultural conservation and the importance of recognizing the ways communities live with, care for, and understand their environments and what these relationships can teach us about more just and meaningful approaches to conservation in a rapidly changing world.

References:

Carmenta, R., Lima, M.G.B., Choiruzzad, S.A., Dawson, N., Estrada-Carmona, N., Hicks, C., Kallis, G., Nana, E., Killick, E., Lees, A. and Martin, A., 2025. Unveiling pervasive assumptions: moving beyond the poverty-biodiversity loss association in conservation. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 74, p.101537.

Tebboth, M.G., Carmenta, R., Minas, A., Adelekan, A., Cao, X., Fullonton, A., Kinally, C., Cataldo, N.L., Mander, S. and Shelton, C., 2025. The ‘how’of transformation: Principles for a justice-centered response to the climate and biodiversity crises. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 67(3), pp.7-23.

Carmenta, R., Barlow, J., Lima, M.G.B., Berenguer, E., Choiruzzad, S., Estrada-Carmona, N., França, F., Kallis, G., Killick, E., Lees, A. and Martin, A., 2023. Connected Conservation: Rethinking conservation for a telecoupled world. Biological Conservation, 282, p.110047.

Lapola, D.M., Pinho, P., Barlow, J., Aragão, L.E., Berenguer, E., Carmenta, R., Liddy, H.M., Seixas, H., Silva, C.V., Silva-Junior, C.H. and Alencar, A.A., 2023. The drivers and impacts of Amazon forest degradation. Science, 379(6630), pp. 8622.

Carmenta, R., Zaehringer, J.G., Balvanera, P., Betley, E., Dawson, N.M., Estrada‐Carmona, N., Forster, J., Hoelle, J., Lliso, B., Llopis, J.C. and Menon, A., 2023. Exploring the relationship between plural values of nature, human well‐being, and conservation and development intervention: Why it matters and how to do it?. People and nature, 5(6), pp.1720-1738.

In this episode Michael speaks with Duan Biggs, Associate Professor and Olajos Goslow Chair at Northern Arizona University. They discuss Duan’s extensive work and engagement in management and global policy in the governance of wildlife trade, and in a community and rights-based response to the Illegal Wildlife Trade. Based on his extensive experience, Duan describes how managing wildlife trade, and tackling illegal trade towards sustainable conservation outcomes requires alignment with the late Nobel Laureate Lin Ostrom’s principles of good sustainable governance. The principles of those affected by policies and rules needing to be key participants in their formulation and fair and legitimate distribution of costs and benefits from policies being particularly important. Duan highlights that legitimate and strong enforcement is key ingredient in managing wildlife trade and curbing illegal wildlife trade, but needs to be accompanied by strong deeply participatory governance systems. In this episode we also discuss how the governance challenges in the Convention of Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), are echoed in other domains of global governance and the backlash and political and governance challenges in the US.

Resources and references:

Duan Biggs’ Lab website: https://www.resilientconservation.org/

What does it take to grow more forests and ensure they last? In this episode, Michael Cox speaks with conservation scientist and award-winning science writer Lauren E. Oakes, author of Treekeepers: The Race for a Forested Future. Through reporting and research that spans from the Scottish Highlands to tropical forests in Central America, Treekeepers tells the story of the global movement to restore forests and the people working to make it possible.

Drawing from these experiences, Oakes reflects on the promise and complexity of natural climate solutions and what successful reforestation requires on the ground. She also examines a central question in the climate conversation: to what extent can forests help save us from climate change? Along the way, Oakes discusses her path bridging science and narrative storytelling, and why human stories can play a powerful role in helping people understand and engage with climate solutions.

In this episode, Divya chats with Pallavi Sethi, a Policy Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change & the Environment at the London School of Economics, where she works on climate misinformation and disinformation. Pallavi brings a unique perspective to this work, shaped by her background in advertising and media studies, as well as her experience in the fact-checking department for a large social media company. It was through these experiences that she began thinking more deeply about climate narratives and its influence on public perception.

At the beginning of their conversation, they discuss some fundamental questions, such as what is climate misinformation and disinformation, what fact-checking is and how it intersects with debates around free speech, and, lastly, who bears responsibility for the information we see and share.

A central thread in Pallavi’s work is her commitment to empowering the public — not just by calling for stronger platform governance, but by building media literacy and awareness so people can better recognize and challenge misleading climate narratives themselves.

Pallavi has done extensive work in this area and brings sharp and thoughtful insights to an incredibly complex issue. But what is truly commendable about her work is that it does not stop at diagnosis; it also points to meaningful responses, such as the media literacy programs for kids in Finland and the efforts of a climate coalition called Climate Action Against Disinformation.

Pallavi discussed the role of Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), a coalition of over 90 organizations working to make the information sphere safer regarding climate information. She explained that CAAD's collective efforts have been instrumental in putting climate disinformation on the global agenda, with information integrity appearing on the provisional agenda at COP30 for the first time. She highlighted that CAAD's strength lies in its ability to bring together diverse voices, making it harder for governments to ignore their demands.

Sources:

Information on Pallavi's bio & background:

https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/profile/pallavi-sethi/

Sethi, P (2024). Kemi Badenoch’s climate scepticism: a growing problem for the Conservative Party and its voters in LSE Blogs.

Sethi, P., & Ward, B. (2024) Reform UK’s climate denial undermines democracy in LSE Blogs.

Sethi, P (2024). Why countering climate misinformation must be a priority in Global Government Forum.

Sethi, P. (2025). The myth of Meta’s free speech places democracy at risk in LSE Blogs.

Sethi, P (2025). Strategic Obstruction: How Europe’s Far-Right Parties Are Blocking Urgent Climate Action. https://hopenothate.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/state-of-hate-2025.pdf

Sethi, P (2025). Inside Trump’s campaign to censor climate science. LSE Blogs

In this episode, Michael speaks with Nathan Truitt, Executive Vice President of Climate Funding for the American Forest Foundation. Nathan works in support of AFF's Family Forest Carbon Program, which it implements in collaboration with the Nature Conservancy. The program is designed to enable small-scale forest landowners to access carbon markets and credits. Together, Michael and Nathan talk about the goals of the program and how it meets the primary challenges that any such program faces, namely ensuring that real and lasting impacts on carbon storage and sequestration are made through the interventions that it supports.

References:

Nathan's background and bio: https://www.forestfoundation.org/who-we-are/people/nathan-truitt/

More information about the Family Forest program: https://www.forestfoundation.org/why-we-do-it/family-forest-blog/

More information about the permanence trust: https://www.forestfoundation.org/permanence-trust/