Earth Stewardship, a journal of the Ecological Society of America, is inviting proposals for a special issue. The issue is linked to strategy 5 of the Transformative Change Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Strategy 5 focuses on shifting societal views and values so that they recognize and prioritize the fundamental interconnections between humans and nature.

The assessment identified three underlying causes of nature’s decline:

• disconnection from and domination over nature and people
• concentration of power and wealth
• prioritization of short-term, individual and material gains

To address these causes, strategy 5 makes the case for moving from relations of domination to relations of care. It draws on Indigenous and other relational philosophies that emphasize reciprocity, harmony and the entanglement of human and natural worlds. It sets out five interconnected actions:

• increasing nature connectedness
• shifting culture through new narratives and eco-social imaginaries
• changing social norms on production and consumption
• facilitating transformative learning
• co-creating knowledge across diverse knowledge systems

The special issue will explore these actions in more depth than the assessment allowed. It will look at how shifts in worldviews, values and relationships are taking root in communities, classrooms, institutions and landscapes, and how they might be deepened and sustained.

Who can contribute

The guest editors welcome contributions from scholars, artists, practitioners, Indigenous knowledge holders, educators and community members whose work relates to one or more of the five actions. They are particularly interested in:

• work that weaves across themes rather than treating a single action in isolation
• contributions on transformation under real-world conditions of disruption and uncertainty
• non-traditional formats, such as art-science collaborations, dialogues, and practice-based or experiential pieces
• transdisciplinary work that engages non-academic partners as co-authors

Submissions can come from any discipline but should fit the transdisciplinary aims of the journal. They should draw on perspectives from the natural and social sciences, arts and humanities.

How to apply

Send a proposal of 300–500 words describing the envisioned contribution, its connection to strategy 5 and its intended format to Hannah Gosnell at gosnellh@oregonstate.edu. The guest editors will invite full submissions from the proposals that are the best fit. Selected authors will take part in a series of collaborative work sessions. These lead up to an organized session at the 2027 Transformations Community conference in Bilbao, Spain.

Guest editors

• Hannah Gosnell, Oregon State University, United States
• Bruce Goldstein, University of Colorado Boulder, United States
• Karen O’Brien, University of Oslo, Norway
• Fern Wickson, University of the Arctic, Norway
• David Wrathall, Oregon State University, United States