2011). Interestingly, the perspective of local land users also became apparent to some degree during this research. NVP-BSK805 It was added to the sustainability notion put forth with respect to the use of pasture ecosystems. While the international community of states participating in the UNFCC process was certainly crucial, the full perspective of the local people would have

become relevant only in the case that advice with respect to a national afforestation scheme was given. Perspectives of various societal actors Some projects featured sustainability conceptions that contained the views and perspectives of various crucial actors and stakeholders. The respective researchers reported the elaborate considerations made to identify the important actors and take up their views. Some projects thereby tried not to give a particular notion, but to encourage Selleck Erismodegib a discussion process among the relevant societal actors and stakeholders to draft a shared vision (e.g., AQUA,

WAT). In other projects, triggering a debate was not an issue, as a broad and inclusive consensus about what to strive for quite obviously existed (e.g., LEG). In terms of interests, power and expertise, these projects’ sustainability notions seemed to reflect the relevant actors’ perspectives well. Characteristics of how sustainability conceptions are handled The identified differences with respect to handling sustainability goals can be described more precisely by distinguishing in what way sustainability notions were actually an issue the researchers engaged in on the level of the project; whether they were made explicit; how concrete they were; as well as what importance during researchers ascribed to them in their projects. These characterizing properties derived from the data are denoted here as deliberation, explicitness, contextualization and relevance. Deliberation Whether,

and to what extent, the researchers reflected upon sustainability understandings underlying their projects is referred to here as deliberation. Deliberation also indicates to some extent the awareness of one’s own worldviews and their RG7112 mw possible influence on a projects’ conception. In projects at one extreme of the spectrum, sustainability goals had either not been reflected upon or only to a small extent. This was indicated by interviewees being unsure about the existence of a sustainability conception, by missing arguments on why a certain notion would be adequate, or by taking the meaning of sustainable development as a given or irrelevant for their work. Some interviewees took up the position that deliberating sustainability orientations was—more or less fully—delegable or excludable from research. MOUNT, for example, held that, as researchers, they could not determine a sustainability conception without the resource users on the ground.