Searching for solutions to the conflict over Europe’s oldest forest
The Białowieża Forest World Heritage site is one of the last remaining primeval forests in lowland Europe and is a refuge for European Bison (Bison bonasus), the largest land mammal on the continent (Table 1).
Stepping on invisible land: on the importance of communicating the value of soils.
Soils play fundamental roles in the functioning of the Earth's ecosystems. Despite numerous initiatives to protect soils, it continues to be generally perceived as dirt or, at best, the surface we walk on. To better understand soil perception by the public, we conducted a survey with 99 participants from Poland and Brazil. We applied opportunity sampling and conducted semi-structured interviews with 40 respondents from Poland and 30 from Brazil, and 29 unstructured interviews in Brazil. Most of the respondents (53%) of the semi-structured interviews associated soil with the surface where plants grow, while 27% said that it is the ground we step on. When asked about pro-environmental campaig…
Perception-Based Study on the Value of Nature to People and Land Sparing for Nature in Brazil and Poland
Understanding perception about nature is paramount to understanding human behavior and decision making on the environment. We performed a survey-based study in Brazil and Poland to better understand the perception of land sparing for nature and the perceived value of nature. The countries were selected by intentional sampling and given their importance for local and global biodiversity conservation, and complex socio-ecological context of conservation versus agroforestry business. We performed an online questionnaire (N = 1030) in Brazil and face-to-face interviews in Poland (N = 322). We found that Brazilian respondents demonstrated more pro-environmental attitudes than Polish survey parti…
Survey-based qualitative analysis of young generation perception of sustainable development in Poland
Abstract Understanding the perception of Sustainable Development can help to identify misconceptions surrounding the concept in order to design better education plans and public policies on this subject. Evaluating the perception of sustainability issues by focusing on the young generation as is an important proxy to imagine what the future holds for in terms of addressing sustainable development. We conducted 177 in-person interviews on a heterogeneous group of students and random volunteers in four cities in Poland to assess their perception of Sustainable Development. The vast majority (89.3%) of the respondents were familiar with the term ‘Sustainable Development’. However, part of them…
Willingness to Adopt Biochar in Agriculture: The Producer’s Perspective
Most research on biochar has focused either on the mechanistic or the biophysical aspects, and there has been relatively little research into the social applicability and acceptance of biochar as a soil enhancer in agriculture. However, whether to adopt biochar in their practice is ultimately the farmers’ decision, and their willingness to do so is crucial. Here, we show the producer’s perspective on adopting biochar, using Polish farmers as a case study. Poland is an interesting case study because biochar has only recently attracted the attention of researchers, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders there. We performed standardized, semi-structured interviews with 161 Polish farmers to eva…
Biochar and Forage Peanut improve pastures: Evidence from a field experiment in Brazil
Pasturelands, often degraded, represent most of the converted lands globally. It is important to understand how different pasture management approaches can improve soil quality, increase feed production and farmer income. Here, the impact of different soil enhancers on soil quality and productivity of three cultivars of Brachiaria (Syn. Urochloa) forage grass is presented. Soil enhancers included: biochar - a carbon-rich product from biomass pyrolysis, moinha (local charcoal residue), traditional fertiliser containing nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, lime, and forage peanut (Arachis pintoi cv. Amarillo). Considering the total biomass produced over the experiment (sum of four harvests), t…