Sustainability is a key challenge for humanity in the context of complex and unprecedented global changes. Future Earth, an international research initiative aiming to advance global sustainability science, has recently launched knowledge–action networks (KANs) as mechanisms for delivering its research strategy. The research initiative is currently developing a KAN on “natural assets” to facilitate and enable action-oriented research and synthesis towards natural assets sustainability. ‘Natural assets’ has been adopted by Future Earth as an umbrella term aiming to translate and bridge across different knowledge systems and different perspectives on peoples’ relationships with nature. In this paper, we clarify the framing of Future Earth around natural assets emphasizing the recognition on pluralism and identifying the challenges of translating different visions about the role of natural assets, including via policy formulation, for local to global sustainability challenges. This understanding will be useful to develop inter-and transdisciplinary solutions for human–environmental problems by (i) embracing richer collaborative decision processes and building bridges across different perspectives; (ii) giving emphasis on the interactions between biophysical and socioeconomic drivers affecting the future trends of investments and disinvestments in natural assets; and (iii) focusing on social equity, power relationships for effective application of the natural assets approach. This understanding also intends to inform the scope of the natural asset KAN’s research agenda to mobilize the translation of research into co-designed action for sustainability.

中文翻译：

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构建自然资产以推进可持续发展研究：将不同的观点转化为行动。

在复杂且前所未有的全球变化背景下，可持续性是人类面临的一项关键挑战。未来地球是一项旨在推进全球可持续发展科学的国际研究计划，最近推出了知识行动网络（KAN）作为实施其研究战略的机制。该研究计划目前正在开发一个关于“自然资产”的 KAN，以促进和实现以行动为导向的研究和综合，以实现自然资产的可持续性。《未来地球》将“自然资源”作为一个总括术语，旨在翻译和弥合不同的知识体系以及对人们与自然关系的不同观点。在本文中，我们围绕自然资产阐明了未来地球的框架，强调对多元化的认识，并确定了将关于自然资产作用的不同愿景（包括通过政策制定）转化为当地到全球可持续发展挑战的挑战。这种理解将有助于为人类环境问题制定跨学科的解决方案，方法是：（i）采用更丰富的协作决策过程并在不同观点之间建立桥梁；(ii) 强调影响自然资产投资和撤资未来趋势的生物物理和社会经济驱动因素之间的相互作用；(iii) 注重社会公平、权力关系，以有效应用自然资产方法。这一理解还旨在告知自然资产 KAN 的研究议程范围，以推动将研究转化为共同设计的可持续发展行动。