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Land-use change is increasingly influenced by complex socioeconomic and environmental interactions that transcend spatial, institutional, and temporal scales. These interactions challenge classical place-based land system analysis and require new analytical approaches equipped for tackling processes, flows, and feedbacks over distance. The recently proposed telecoupling framework offers interesting perspectives for bringing place-based and process-oriented research together in the study of land-use change. However, few studies have explored the influence and implications of telecouplings in local land-use changes. One reason for this is that the framework still faces challenges for application in empirical research. Here, we offer a qualitative operationalization of the telecoupling framework to explore its relevance and applicability in a case of local land-use change. Investigating the case of a recent boom in commercial banana cultivation in Luang Namtha Province, Lao PDR, we use a grounded empirical approach starting with the observed land-use change at the village level. We then trace flows and distal processes influencing the conversion to banana cultivation from the perspectives and experiences of the local actors involved. The results identify four prominent material and immaterial telecouplings at various spatial and temporal scales, as well as some potential feedbacks. This complexity points to the need for interdisciplinary research because the processes involved in creating telecoupled land-use change transcend the boundaries of any one discipline. Overall, however, telecoupling presents a strong heuristic lens for examining and describing distal causal relations in land-use change in a manner that does not favor a specific analytical scale or type of interaction.

Research on spatial imaginaries, or collective sense-making processes relating to spaces and the material practices these frame, has shed light on smallholder farmers' transformative power to facilitate sustainability transitions. Based on insights from participatory workshops to encourage transdisciplinary knowledge co-creation with smallholders in South Punjab, Pakistan, this study addresses farmers' spatial imaginaries, their determinants and the challenges inherent in proposing alternative strategies for agrarian transformation. Despite taking a critical stance on existing technocratic and modernist agricultural policies, the farmers proposed alternative visions and strategies that did not encapsulate radical change but, paradoxically, aligned with the existing paradigms of industrial agriculture they criticized in the first place. Based on our findings, we reveal how this paradox can best be understood using the lens of \"constrained spatial imaginaries\". Our results reveal how historical legacies of the Green Revolution, structural constraints of an increasingly neoliberal political economy of agriculture and pressing livelihood vulnerabilities come together to constrain farmers' imaginaries, leading to pragmatic strategies within existing systems rather than challenging them. Constrained spatial imaginaries refer thus to visions of spatial restructuring held by farmers that are aligned with the principles of industrial agriculture. We emphasize herein that transdisciplinary researchers should bring to the forefront the spatial imaginaries of smallholders, and the constraints these represent. Decision-makers in the field of agricultural policy and practices should take these constrained imaginaries seriously in order to foster agricultural innovation and sustainability in smallholder farming communities.

Rural entrepreneurship has been seen by the central government of China as a key means to rural vitalization. However, research focus on the long-term developmental status of rural entrepreneurship at local scale has been limited. According to industry types of differentiation, this research describes rural enterprises registered in the administrative area of Mianyang, southwest China, from 2011 to 2020. The spatial-temporal distribution rule of rural entrepreneurship is explored via a quantitative approach focused on spatial analysis and correlation analysis, as well as the application of geocoding on web data. How contexts such as the natural base, socio-economic condition, and institutional arrangements impact this distribution are empirically explored and discussed. The paper adds spatial-temporal insights into the role of the context of rural entrepreneurship. In particular, the paper highlights that rural entrepreneurship is a process potentially best explored at the regional scale and that physical condition and institutional support play central roles in rural entrepreneurship in southwest China.

The Sudano-Sahelian zone of West Africa has experienced recurrent droughts since the mid-1970s and today there is considerable concern for how this region will be able to adapt to future climate change. To develop well targeted adaptation strategies, the relative importance of climate factors as drivers of land use and livelihood change need to be better understood. Based on the perceptions of 1249 households in five countries across an annual rainfall gradient of 400-900 mm, we provide an estimate of the relative weight of climate factors as drivers of changes in rural households during the past 20 years. Climate factors, mainly inadequate rainfall, are perceived by 30-50% of households to be a cause of decreasing rainfed crop production, whereas a wide range of other factors explains the remaining 50-70%. Climate factors are much less important for decreasing livestock production and pasture areas. Increases in pasture are also observed and caused by improved tenure in the driest zone. Adaptation strategies to declining crop production include ‘prayer’ and migration in the 400-500 mm zone; reforestation, migration, and government support in the 500-700 mm zone; and soil improvement in the 700-900 mm zone. Declining livestock holdings are countered by improved fodder resources and veterinary services. It is concluded that although rainfed crop production is mainly constrained by climate factors, livestock and pasture are less climate sensitive in all rainfall zones. This needs to be reflected in national adaptation strategies in the region.

The literature on barriers to climate change adaptation has largely focused on non-climatic barriers and has provided less insight into climate-induced barriers. Responding to this lacuna, this paper examines the connections between climate change and agricultural adaptation strategies of smallholder farmers in northern Ghana. Results from the qualitative fieldwork show that climatic changes have been accompanied by increases in climate change extremes (CCEs) over the last three decades. In order to adapt, smallholder farmers use improved crop varieties and other support strategies. Paradoxically, however, CCEs have undermined these strategies in several instances, causing crop yields to fall short of their actual potential and leading to financial indebtedness. Therefore, the results showcase that overcoming non-climatic barriers to the uptake of agricultural adaptation strategies is a necessary but insufficient condition for achieving successful adaptation outcomes. This is the case since new barriers to the adaptation process are constantly emerging, and CCEs are an example of this.

Smallholder farming has in China been viewed as a practice needing transformation. Its relationship with rural development and economic growth has been frequently analyzed in China. Government‐led initiatives promoting the integration of smallholder operations with industrialized agriculture have resulted in collaboration models between smallholders and large‐scale agribusiness. Circular agriculture understood as an agricultural practice that enhances economic and ecological sustainability represents one of the mechanisms through which such collaboration can take place. While this collaboration provides smallholders with opportunities for increased productivity and income, it also carries the risk of marginalization. This study examines the collaboration between agricultural capital and smallholders in southwest China focusing on an integrated pomelo planting and a pig breeding project. The varying interests and risks faced by smallholders, government agencies, agricultural cooperatives, private enterprises, and financial institutions are explored. Findings suggest that local governments play a key role in facilitating the introduction of capital and affording the initial costs of organizing smallholders, while agricultural cooperatives decoupling smallholders from capital are central to the operation of large‐scale production models. However, findings also show that local government involvement is often politically motivated, that smallholders' autonomy and voice in decision‐making are limited, and that a risk of exploiting their interests under the guise of institutional innovation remains. The viability of these collaboration models lies thus rather in its ability to attract new producers and create jobs particularly for returning migrants or local smallholders. The findings could offer a potential pathway for addressing the agricultural transformation challenges facing China. Plain Language Summary Smallholders have long been the backbone of agriculture in China; the central government advocates encouraging smallholders to cooperate with large‐scale agribusinesses to achieve agricultural modernization and improve the productivity and sustainability of smallholders. Circular agriculture is a promising approach in these cooperative models, focusing on reducing waste, recycling by‐products, and achieving economic and environmental benefits. This study observed how smallholders and agribusinesses cooperate in southwest China, focusing on the model of combining pomelo planting with pig farming. The findings highlight the important role of local governments in building platforms with the core function of agricultural cooperatives in managing business. However, the research also shows that government involvement is often politically motivated and smallholders may lose autonomy and fair representation in the decision‐making process. This study provides an in‐depth exploration of how circular agriculture can address the challenges of China's agricultural transformation and create a more inclusive and sustainable future for smallholders. Key Points Circular agriculture models integrating pomelo planting and pig breeding link smallholders with agricultural capital Local government is pivotal in facilitating capital and resources, while agricultural cooperatives decoupled smallholders from capital Viable collaboration attracts producers and protects smallholder interests providing insights for China's agricultural transformation

Environmental peacebuilding represents a paradigm shift from a nexus of environmental scarcity to one of environmental peace. It rests on the assumption that the biophysical environment’s inherent characteristics can act as incentives for cooperation and peace, rather than violence and competition. Based on this, environmental peacebuilding presents cooperation as a win-win solution and escape from the zero-sum logic of conflict. However, there is a lack of coherent environmental peacebuilding framework and evidence corroborating the existence of this environment-peace nexus. Building on a multidisciplinary literature review, this article examines the evolution of environmental peacebuilding into an emerging framework. It unpacks the concept and explains its main building blocks (conditions, mechanisms and outcomes) to develop our understanding of when, how and why environmental cooperation can serve as a peacebuilding tool. It assembles these building blocks into three generic trajectories (technical, restorative and sustainable environmental peacebuilding), each characterised according to their own causality, drivers and prerequisites, and illustrated with concrete examples. Finally, this article draws attention to the remaining theoretical gaps in the environmental peacebuilding literature, and lays the foundations for an environmental peacebuilding research agenda that clarifies if and how environmental cooperation can spill over across borders, sectors and scales towards sustainable peace.

The multiple environmentalities framework has been used to disentangle the diverse rationalities of governance that underpin contemporary environmental governance programmes. Often missing from such analyses is a networked and scalar dimension that can provide a basis for understanding the structural dimensions of environmental governance and the contingent expressions of multiple environmentalities. Here, we draw on insights from politics of scale to present a framework for analysing the multiple environmentalities of environmental governance in protected areas. We focus on the construction of Nam Et-Phou Louey National Park in Lao PDR, drawing on document analysis and semi-structured interviews with multi-level actor groups. We show how conservation interventions rationalised on neoliberal environmentalities produce novel discursive and material mechanisms for extending sovereign environmentalities, for instance via contractual obligations and via project designs that necessitate social fragmentation. In addition, by presenting case studies of multiple environmentalities in three village sites, we demonstrate how interactions generate contestations and lead to new entanglements for residents, resulting in geographically and socially uneven manifestations of conservation programmes. We urge further attention to how competing scale-making projects interact to shape the practices of environmental governance and the fragmented nature through which environmental subjects are formed.

Land-based production provides societies with indispensable goods such as food, feed, fibre, and energy. Yet, with economic globalisation and global population growth, the environmental and social trade-offs of their production are ever more complex. This is particularly so since land use changes are increasingly embedded in networks of long-distance flows of, e.g., material, energy, and information. The resulting scientific and governance challenge is captured in the emerging telecoupling framework addressing socioeconomic and environmental interactions and feedbacks between distal human-environment systems. Understanding telecouplings, however, entails a number of fundamental analytical problems. When dealing with global connectivity, a central question is how and where to draw system boundaries between coupled systems. In this article, we explore the analytical implications of setting system boundaries in the study of a recent telecoupled land use change: the expansion of Chinese banana plantation investments in Luang Namtha Province, Laos. Based on empirical material from fieldwork in Laos in 2014 and 2015, and drawing on key concepts from the ‘systems thinking’ literature, we illustrate how treating the system and its boundaries as epistemological constructs enable us to capture the differentiated involvement of actors, as well as the socio-economic and environmental effects of this land use change. In discussing our results, the need for more explicit attention to the trade-offs and implications of scale and boundary choices when defining systems is emphasised.

Despite the popularity of integrated conservation and development approaches to protected area management, adjacent communities increasingly face livelihood dilemmas. Yet understanding of how market processes and conservation enforcement interact to influence livelihood responses remains limited. Targeting eight villages in Nam Et-Phou Louey (NEPL) National Park in northern Lao PDR, we draw on survey data with 255 households, 93 semi-structured interviews, and meso-level data on village conditions to examine how residents navigate associated livelihood dilemmas. A cluster analysis reveals five livelihood types with divergent capacities to engage in market development and cope with enforcement pressures. We show how market linkages, historical conservation interventions, and local access conditions shape livelihoods and differences between villages. Our approach yields a nuanced picture of how global conservation efforts result in an uneven distribution of costs and benefits at local scales. Conservation measures must account for highly divergent capacities to cope with access loss and diversify livelihoods.