I have a soft spot for titles that include the kitchen sink and lack what we’ll call concision. It comes from regular attempts to bring together strange bedfellows with our Environmental Change and Security Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
So I was heartened and not put off when I received notice of a new open source ejournal Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy. As explained in an inaugural editorial by journal advisor and renowned biologist E. O. Wilson, “[t]he goal of the publication — to establish a forum for cross-disciplinary discussion of natural and social sciences, practices, and policies related to sustainability — is an important step toward creating achievable sustainable practices through buy-in and consensus.”
Such forums at the science -policy interface are too few and far between. This one promises to have a chance to make a difference, even if reading the inaugural issue suggests it will err on the scholarly side of readability. The journal’s private and public backers, CSA, the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), and Conservation International (CI), bring some diverse ends and means to the table.
