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Focusing on donkeys, this paper examines the type and scope of ‘work’ undertaken by working equids in three very different contexts in the United Kingdom, Europe and the Global South (case studies). Drawing on the concepts of ‘animal work’ and ‘nonhuman labour’ as discussed by critical theorists such as Porcher, Estebanez, Coulter, Barua and others we aim to: (i) Elaborate on the concept of ‘shared work’ by bringing key animal welfare concepts into dialogue with emerging literature on animal labour through a relational theoretical lens; (ii) Explore the nature of equid work including its physicality, and also the freedoms and opportunities that are afforded to equids (in terms of rest, play and kinship); (iii) Illustrate how work may be experienced by the equids themselves, using vignettes based on ‘more-than-human’ ethnographic fieldwork so as to foreground the equid perspective and illuminate questions of agency, sentience and subjectivity.

The emergence of free-roaming donkey (Equus asinus) populations globally has brought novel challenges for conservationists, land managers, and those concerned about animal welfare. We provide a review of the scientific literature pertaining to the place and role of free-roaming donkeys from 1950 until 2020. Using quantitative and qualitative techniques, namely categorical and thematic analysis and critical discourse analysis, to review >100 articles, we critically examine the logics and rationales that are used to either support or denounce donkey presence in particular landscapes and discuss their place and role in different ecological contexts. Free-roaming donkeys are largely understudied and clouded by dichotomous points of view, different conservation agendas, and the presence of other species in donkey habitat. There is an important need for more in-depth, site-specific studies on free-roaming donkeys that draw on tools and techniques from across the social and natural sciences. Such efforts would offer a richer, more holistic, and comprehensive picture of free-roaming donkeys that consider both human and animal perspectives and the wider environment. This has important implications for generating long-term sustainable management solutions for free-roaming donkeys.

The last forty years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo) moving inland away from British coastlines. Britain’s largest inland colony currently reside at Walthamstow Wetlands, a nature reserve and functional reservoir system in northeast London, recently branded ‘Europe’s largest urban wetland’. Here, great cormorants are embroiled in contested ideas of nature. Celebrated by conservationists for their resilience and adaptability, yet hounded by anglers for launching ecological chaos on rivers and reservoirs and disrupting the balance that is imagined for urban recreational spaces. This paper argues for a more nuanced version of rewilding that acknowledges the biogeographical complexity and mobility of nonhumans in relation to radically altered ecologies and post-industrial urban environments. It uses the conceptual frame of more-than-human to examine the increased presence, mobility, and agency of great cormorants at Walthamstow Wetlands in terms of nonhuman autonomy and auto-rewilding. The findings demonstrate that the self-relocation and autonomous occupation of inland cormorants in Walthamstow are intimately entangled with human histories and activities, and that they are active alongside humans in creating novel ecosystems.

International Development Organisations (IDOs) undertake critical work to improve the lives of people across the world, particularly in the Global South [...].International Development Organisations (IDOs) undertake critical work to improve the lives of people across the world, particularly in the Global South [...].

Critical scholars have questioned the shifting dynamics of power and governance involved, how these are enfolded in novel spatial and temporal framings, and the ethical and justice implications for both human-human and human-nonhuman relations. By mobilising scientific knowledge and employing mechanisms such as species lists and the concept of biodiversity, compositionalist conservation has demarcated, ordered and valued nature at both a species-population scale and through the bodies of individuals (Biermann and Mansfield 2014; Braverman 2015). Within this collection, the demarcation of life as protected or ‘made killable’ is a subject of discussion for papers by Clancy and Ward; O'Mahony; Ward and Prior, who evaluate the ways in which the lives of birds, boars and beavers (respectively) are ranked, ordered and regulated according to measures such as breeding and physiology, the extent and locations of territory, and behavioural dynamics. Reintroduction is a central feature of the rewilding movement, to enable the enhancement of trophic complexity and enrich depleted system dynamics (Svenning et al. 2016), but it is a fraught objective.

In a rapidly urbanising world, where lands are increasingly repurposed for human endeavours, where seas and rivers carry the weight of mounting plastic, where species extinction is a common theme and where the effects of global climate change are a daily reality, there has never been a more pressing need to rethink nature-society relations and environmental ethics. This thesis draws insights from two cases of urban renaturing in Britain (London and Plymouth) to explore critical issues in contemporary environmental practice, including what matters for humans and nonhumans in such endeavours. Renaturing is here understood as an intentional, reflective attempt to restore human/nonhuman relations, as well as the biophysical health of ecosystems. The twofold nature of this endeavour makes it a productive point of investigation, offering a means to uniquely contribute to academic discussions on nature-society relations and the future purpose of nature conservation in the UK. It argues that within urban environments, renaturing is best understood as a lively and creative endeavour, yet one full of contestation, characterised by issues of power, ownership and participation. For this reason, the thesis explores renaturing from human and more-than-human perspectives, to draw out multiple voices and thereby enrich understandings of what it means to intervene in nature, especially in dynamic, multispecies cities. The two case studies offer different angles on urban renaturing. Firstly, the study reveals that contemporary ambitions for 'wilder cities' do not exist in a vacuum: 'nature' is silently structured and ordered according to urban planning agendas, as well as vivid (re)imaginations of the environmental past. Secondly, it reveals that wild spaces can become highly defended places in cities. While this is partly due to do with the perceived issue of urban encroachment (higher densities of people), it is also to do with the way nature is imagined (as vulnerable and exclusive). Thirdly, it reveals that renaturing has material consequences for all those creatures who do not 'count' as nature. Taking a more-than-human approach, it argues that spatial categories (native/invasive, wild/domestic) do little to meet contemporary challenges in more ethical and meaningful ways. Finally, it reveals that in post-normal and post-natural times, there are significant limitations in the way(s) that humans govern the nonhuman world, including the decision-making capabilities of such actors. It therefore argues that there is a need to rethink the ways in which nature knowledge is produced, with closer attention to place, and what place reveals about the inextricable entanglements of people, plants and the many creatures and critters that exist in UK cities.

Evidence suggests that living near green space supports mental health, but studies examining the association of green space with early mental health symptoms among children are rare. To evaluate the association between residential green space and early internalizing (eg, anxiety and depression) and externalizing (eg, aggression and rule-breaking) symptoms. Data for this cohort study were drawn from the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes cohort; analysis was conducted from July to October 2023. Children born between 2007 and 2013 with outcome data in early (aged 2-5 years) and/or middle (aged 6-11 years) childhood who resided in 41 states across the US, drawing from clinic, hospital, and community-based cohorts, were included. Cohort sites were eligible if they recruited general population participants and if at least 30 children had outcome and residential address data to measure green space exposure. Nine cohorts with 13 sites met these criteria. Children diagnosed with autism or developmental delay were excluded, and 1 child per family was included. Green space exposure was measured using a biannual (ie, summer and winter) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, a satellite image-based indicator of vegetation density assigned to monthly residential history from birth to outcome assessment. Child internalizing and externalizing symptoms were assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 1½ to 5 or 6 to 18. The association between green space and internalizing and externalizing symptoms was modeled with multivariable linear regression using generalized estimating equations, adjusting for birthing parent educational level, age at delivery, child sex, prematurity, and neighborhood socioeconomic vulnerability. Models were estimated separately for early and middle childhood samples. Among 2103 children included, 1061 (50.5%) were male; 606 (29.1%) identified as Black, 1094 (52.5%) as White, 248 (11.9%) as multiple races, and 137 (6.6%) as other races. Outcomes were assessed at mean (SD) ages of 4.2 (0.6) years in 1469 children aged 2 to 5 years and 7.8 (1.6) years in 1173 children aged 6 to 11 years. Greater green space exposure was associated with fewer early childhood internalizing symptoms in fully adjusted models (b = -1.29; 95% CI, -1.62 to -0.97). No associations were observed between residential green space and internalizing or externalizing symptoms in middle childhood. In this study of residential green space and children's mental health, the association of green space with fewer internalizing symptoms was observed only in early childhood, suggesting a sensitive period for nature exposure. Policies protecting and promoting access to green space may help alleviate early mental health risk.

One of the most important pathways to health is through health care. Yet disparities in health care remain a prevalent problem in the U.S. Prior research has established that socio-economic status (SES), race, and geographic location are predictive of health care receipt, but little research has explored the influence of these risk factors in relation to one another, especially among mothers and infants. In addition, little is known about the receipt of health care for mothers and their infants living in more rural areas. To extend previous research and address the dearth of research on health care for rural families, the focus of the present study was to examine the influence of a multitude of factors, including rurality, socio-economic status, and race, on maternal and infant health care services among a predominantly lower-income, non-metropolitan sample living in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Findings indicated few differences in maternal and infant health care by rurality alone. As a whole, mothers and infants reported high frequencies of regular care. Risks associated with low socio-economic standing affected only White families living in more rural areas. These families were at risk for not receiving prenatal care or childbirth preparation services. Findings also indicated that families who are typically most at-risk were actually more likely to receive certain specialty health care services. For example, low-income families and Black families were more likely than families with higher economic standing and White families to receive post-birth home visits. No significant differences in infant well-care visits by income, race, or rurality were found. Mothers with an education beyond high school were almost twice as likely to report having a regular doctor for their child. Other significant predictors of maternal and infant health care receipt included factors that enabled or impeded receipt and factors that created a health care need. These factors included: personal transportation, travel time to reach the doctor, social support, maternal health risks, and whether the child was the mother’s first-born. First-time mothers were significantly more likely to receive childbirth classes and parent education videos. This study demonstrated that although some health care disparities may still exist for lower-income families in non-metropolitan areas, receipt of maternal and infant health care services are greatly improving for at-risk families. The study substantiates the efforts of maternal and infant health care programming and financial supports that are currently being implemented at the federal, state, and local level.