摘要：Social-ecological systems (SES) research has emerged as an important area of sustainabilityscience, informing and supporting pressing issues of transformation towards more sustainable,just and equitable futures. To date, much SES research has been done in or from the GlobalNorth, where the challenges and contexts for supporting sustainability transformations aresubstantially different from the Global South. This paper synthesises emerging insights on SESdynamics that can inform actions and advance research to support sustainability transformations specifically in the southern African context. The paper draws on work linked to membersof the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS), a leading SESresearch network in the region, synthesizing key insights with respect to the five core themes ofSAPECS: (i) transdisciplinary and engaged research, (ii) ecosystem services and human wellbeing, (iii) governance institutions and management practices, (iv) spatial relationships andcross-scale connections, and (v) regime shifts, traps and transformations. For each theme, wefocus on insights that are particularly novel, interesting or important in the southern Africancontext, and reflect on key research gaps and emerging frontiers for SES research in the regiongoing forward. Such place-based insights are important for understanding the variation in SESdynamics around the world, and are crucial for informing a context-sensitive global agenda tofoster sustainability transformations at local to global scales.
关键词：SAPECS;social-ecologicalsystems;transdisciplinarity;ecosystem services;humanwell-being;transformations;Global South
