The mangrove socio-ecological system is invaluable and has provided multiple ecosystem services to human beings, such as livelihood support, wildlife conservation, coastal resilience, and high carbon storage1,2. They have been globally converted for commodities such as palm oil, farmed fish, and agricultural cultivation in the past two decades3–6 driven by international trade. However, the mechanisms and dynamics have not been explored much, with only sporadic discussions in deforestation studies. These studies found that consumers and laborers from neighboring and distant nations have exerted profound pressure on local forest loss7–9, including mangrove forests.A growing body of literature has explored how global forces can be understood using integrated frameworks and models. For example, metacoupling framework can systematically address interactions across geographic borders, which categorize the human-nature interactions into different coupling types based on their geographic relationships to a specific system, such as the interactions within a system (intracoupling), between adjacent systems (pericoupling), and between distal systems (telecoupling)10–12; the IPAT/STIRPAT model statistically considers socio-economic factors such as population, affluence, technology, and other variables to examine their influences on environmental outcomes; and Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) framework from the United Nations blueprints comprehensive sustainable goals for nations to fulfill by 2023. My dissertation is to apply these tools to understand the spatial dynamics (chapter 2), drivers (chapter 3), and complementarities (chapter 4) of the mangrove human-environment system through its metacoupled interactions (chapter 1). Chapter 1 expands the metacoupling framework from a global market perspective to understand how international trade interacts with focal mangrove human-natural systems across space. Chapters 2 & 3 quantitatively explore the relationship between international trade and mangrove loss at the national scale. In particular, chapter 2 measures mangrove loss footprint, defined as the mangrove loss consumed to meet a country’s final demand, and provides a fine-scale representation of spatial patterns of mangrove loss footprint. Chapter 3 comprehensively examines the driving forces behind anthropogenic mangrove loss embedded within global supply chains. Chapter 4 takes Indonesia as an example to understand the policy pathways to achieve mangrove conservation success and sustainable development by understanding their complementarities. Lastly, Chapter 5 synthesizes the main conclusions in the dissertation and emphasizes the critical role of metacoupling interactions in mangrove conservation and governance. As a result, Chapter 2 finds domestic mangrove loss driven by its own consumption has the highest account, mangrove loss driven by distant developed economies is second. Japan, the USA, and China are the top 3 mangrove loss importers who outsourced their consumption to other countries’ mangrove forests, while Indonesia, Myanmar, and Vietnam are the top 3 mangrove loss exporters whose mangrove losses are outsourced to other countries’ consumption. Further, Chapter 3 demonstrates the robustness of the IPAT/STIRPAT theory by investigating the driving forces behind mangrove loss embedded in international trade, showing that a 1% increase in population and GDP per capita results in a 0.925% and 0.629% rise in the mangrove loss footprint, respectively. Moreover, GDP per capita exhibits a significant positive elastic relationship with distant mangrove loss footprints, where a 1% increase in GDP per capita growth leads to more than a 1% rise in distant mangrove deforestation. Government effectiveness is a critical factor affecting adjacent mangrove loss footprints, underscoring effective governance's role in managing domestic and transboundary mangrove conservation. Chapter 4 conducts a comprehensive network analysis by following the ‘product space’ method in economics and creates the 'Mangrove-SDG space' to explore the intricate interactions. We recommend four critical policy priorities in Indonesia to seek complementarities in mangrove conservation and sustainable development: effective nitrogen management, enhancing Ramsar site efficiency, optimizing logistic performance, and addressing urban population conditions. The research is the first to comprehensively evaluate the relationship between mangrove loss and global supply chains by tracing international trade flows between consumer countries and mangrove-holding countries and understanding their driving forces over distances. It is also pioneering work to decompose the root causes of mangrove loss from consumer perspectives and accounting for the geographical context. Moreover, the metacoupling framework provides new integrated perspectives on the socio-economic drivers of mangrove ecosystems, which can help proactive strategies for mangrove conservation and global sustainability.
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