The fragmentation of larger plastic debris into secondary microplastics is an escalating environmental challenge impacting ecosystems worldwide. The occurrence and pathways of this process within a given region are influenced by a combination of anthropogenic and environmental factors. Anthropogenic drivers shape the production and uncontrolled release of mismanaged plastic waste, along with its specific properties (e.g., polymer type, shape, size). In contrast, environmental factors govern the subsequent physical (e.g., mechanical fragmentation by wind or water) and biochemical (e.g., photooxidation) fragmentation of the plastic. Given the intricate interplay of these factors, encompassing both human-induced and natural characteristics of a region, plastic fragmentation presents itself as an ideal subject for comprehensive geographical research. As a guide for future investigations, we provide maps illustrating global patterns of mismanaged plastic waste emissions and the intensities of key physical and biochemical factors driving its fragmentation. Our analysis identifies hotspots of mismanaged plastic waste emissions, predominantly in South and Southeast Asia and the western part of South America. These hotspots are mapped as areas where high emissions of mismanaged plastic waste intersect with significant levels of UV radiation, strong winds, and flowing water. Our maps highlight coastal and riverine regions within these areas as hotspots where the interplay of biochemical and physical factors likely results in particularly high rates of plastic waste fragmentation. Additionally, we underscore the strong association of these hotspots with aquatic environments, which are especially susceptible to the widespread dispersion of secondary microplastics produced through this fragmentation process.

In recent decades, a series of socio-economic and ecological transformations have facilitated the return of large carnivores to areas where they had been previously extirpated. These rewilding processes, whether autonomous or human-driven, are often accompanied by increasingly conflictual relationships that undermine long-term coexistence and pose new challenges related to how to live with a presence that may be as uncomfortable as it is spectacular.

This presentation draws on ethnographic research in Trentino, Italy, to explore tracking as both a methodological tool and object of inquiry. In particular, it explores tracking as a multifaceted set of practices that underscores important aspects of the contemporary spatial and affective dimensions of human, bear and wolf cohabitation. Indeed, tracking is a privileged activity for investigating the interplay between space, power, technology, knowledge systems and more-than-human agencies in the context of conservation. As a scientific activity, tracking involves wildlife monitoring, data collection and mapping, with significant implications for biosecurity and conservation policies (O'Mahony, Corradini & Gazzola, 2018). Simultaneously is an affective embodied experience that engages the tracker with the multisensory and multispecies fabric of the landscapes (Morizot, 2021, Gandy, 2024). ‘To trace’ is above all to follow paths that connect visibility and invisibility, presence and absence. Traces and paths are the interweaving of multi-temporal lines of movements inscribed in the landscape that, once retraced, allow us to explore how landscapes are formed, transformed and inhabited by human and non-human beings (Ingold, 2010, Du Plessis, 2022).

The ethnographic involvement in tracking activities conducted both by field-scientists, citizen-scientists and unprofessional naturalists, unfolded the potential of tracking as a methodology for multispecies ethnography. In particular, three aspects of tracking practices are discussed: knowledge-making, landscaping, and metamorphosis. These dimensions highlight how tracking unsettle traditional binarism such as nature/artificial, human/nonhuman and science/local knowledge and opens up a space of possibility for rethinking coexistence as a multispecies relational achievement.

References
Du Plessis, Pierre

2022 Tracking meat of the sand: Noticing multispecies landscapes in the Kalahari. Environmental Humanities, 14(1), 49-70.

Gandy, Matthew

2024 Attentive Observation: Walking, Listening, Staying Put. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 1-19.

Ingold, Tim

2000 The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London and New York: routledge.

Ingold, Tim

2010 Footprints through the weather-world: walking, breathing, knowing. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16: S121–S139.

Morizot, Baptiste

2020 Sulla pista animale. Nottetempo.

O’Mahony, Kieran, Corradini, Andrea, & Gazzola, Andrea

2018 Lupine becomings—tracking and assembling Romanian wolves through multi-sensory fieldwork. society & animals, 26(2), 107-129.

The contribution will bring empirical facts for a Geography of Sustainable Development (GSD) as a new discipline capable to offer sollutions for the challenges of the Anthropocene. We will emphasise three crucial elements of the GSD: 1. localization of SDGs, 2. use of Earth Observation methods and techinques for the measurement of sustainable development, 3. development of new data models based on AI for understanding the sustaunailbity transition. We use our latest empirical results form Eastern Europe and Central Asia to underline our argeuments for the GSD.