Mapping the planet's critical natural assets

Sustaining the organisms, ecosystems and processes that underpin human wellbeing is necessary to achieve sustainable development. Here we define critical natural assets as the natural and semi-natural ecosystems that provide 90% of the total current magnitude of 14 types of nature's contributions to people (NCP), and we map the global locations of these critical natural assets at 2 km resolution. Critical natural assets for maintaining local-scale NCP (12 of the 14 NCP) account for 30% of total global land area and 24% of national territorial waters, while 44% of land area is required to also maintain two global-scale NCP (carbon storage and moisture recycling). These areas overlap substantially with cultural diversity (areas containing 96% of global languages) and biodiversity (covering area requirements for 73% of birds and 66% of mammals). At least 87% of the world's population live in the areas benefitting from critical natural assets for local-scale NCP, while only 16% live on the lands containing these assets. Many of the NCP mapped here are left out of international agreements focused on conserving species or mitigating climate change, yet this analysis shows that explicitly prioritizing critical natural assets and the NCP they provide could simultaneously advance development, climate and conservation goals

Judges, ‘common sense’ and judicial cognition

Judges are like other human beings. They use their ‘common sense’, their common understanding, their contemporary knowledge of society and the expectations of the community, as part of judicial decision-making. Judicial common sense understandings about the world and human behaviour may also form a silent lens through which judges interpret the meaning of matters such as reasonableness and normality of human behaviour, and assess the meaning of visual phenomenon such as signs, pictures and video. However, judges may be unconsciously impacted by cognitive limitations. Judge’s factual assumptions may be influenced by their own cultural worldviews. Judicial use of common sense can be the vehicle through which error and discrimination enter the law. Part 2 of this article examines how judges use common sense in their judicial reasoning. Part 3 suggests that judicial construction of common sense is a cognitive process with the consequent impact of bounded rationality, heuristics, biases, emotion and cognitive illusions. Part 4 discusses whether judges can overcome the limitations of common sense reasoning. The article argues that while common sense and common understandings will always be an inevitable part of judicial decision-making more attention is required to address the limitations of common sense judging.Arts, Education & Law Group, School of LawNo Full Tex