As exemplified by the recent IPCC Report, we are experiencing unprecedented global change, and rapid changes in social-ecological systems. In their recent paper, Fischer et al. (2022) used a leverage points perspective to compare three rural landscapes and their system properties at different levels of depth, all of which had been previously studied by the Social-Ecological Systems Institute. The authors hypothesized that despite major socioeconomic differences, ultimately, the different landscapes may face similar sustainability challenges and have similar system characteristics.

The authors studied three rural landscapes in southeastern Australia, central Romania, and southwestern Ethiopia. They systematically compared these landscapes using the leverage points perspective and a transdisciplinary lens. In Australia, they studied a commercial wheat cropping and sheep grazing region in the southeast, while focussing on tree regeneration under different livestock grazing regimes. In Romania and Ethiopia, they studied…