Paper short abstract:

This paper examines knowledge-policy responses in Latin America, South Asia, and Africa to the biophysical impacts of nitrogen in human ecologies. It asks how the knowledge-policy interface in postcolonial nations has responded to the rise of nitrogen as a global and planetary governance problem.

Paper long abstract:

The intensive use of chemical fertilizers, rapid urbanization, and fossil fuel and biomass burning, among other human activities, have dramatically increased global anthropogenic reactive nitrogen (Nr) emissions since the 1960s. These actives have modified the global nitrogen cycle and impacted biogeochemical processes critical to sustaining life on Earth. As Nr compounds accumulate, circulate, and convert into various reactive forms—nitrous oxide (N2O), nitrate (NO3-), nitrogen oxides (NOx), nitrite (NO2-), ammonia (NH3), and ammonium (NH4+)—, they intensify multiple socio-ecological effects transcending disciplinary, national, and ecological boundaries.

National and intergovernmental organizations, including the recent United Nations Resolution on Sustainable Nitrogen Management (UNEA 5.2), have adopted nitrogen as a critical socio-environmental issue and a fundamental piece in achieving the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Yet, impacts, knowledge, policy responses, and social demands have grown unequally. Scientific networks and institutions in the Global South have historically been unable to participate on equal terms.

This paper examines developing and postcolonial nation’s knowledge and policy responses to the nitrogen challenge in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. It asks: how have scientific networks, institutions, and communities in these regions experienced and responded to the rise of nitrogen as a global governance problem and the biophysical effects of Nr compounds on humans and ecologies? What tensions emerge between global governance and local, national, and subnational arenas? And finally, how do processes of the knowledge-policy interface in postcolonial nations reshape and contest the language and metrics of global governance and planetary stewardship?