This commentary focuses on analyzing the potential of citizen science to address legitimacy issues in the knowledge base used to guide transformative governance in the context of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (henceforth SDGs). The commentary develops two interrelated arguments for better understanding the limits of what we term “traditional” Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (EMA) as well as the potential of citizen science (CS) for strengthening the legitimacy of EMA in the local implementation of SDGs. We start by arguing that there is an urgent need for a profound renewal of traditional EMA to better implement the SDGs. Then, we present CS as a democratic innovation that provides a path to EMA renewal that incorporates, develops, and extends the role of CS in data production and use by EMA. The commentary substantiates such arguments based on current approaches to CS and traditional EMA. From this starting point, we theorize the potential of CS as a democratic innovation that can repurpose EMA as a tool for the implementation of the SDGs. With a focus on the implementation of SDG15 (Life on Land) in local contexts, the commentary presents CS as a democratic innovation for legitimate transformative governance that can affect socio-ecological transitions. We see this approach as especially appropriate to analyze the implementation of SDGs in rural settings where a specific resource nexus can create conflict-laden contexts with much potential for a renewed EMA to support transformative governance towards Agenda 2030.

The article analyses how and why agricultural digitalisation unfolds in contrasting agricultural sub‐sectors and rural spaces in Europe, with a particular focus on dairy farming. The authors explore the differences and similarities underpinning and produced by agricultural digitalisation and how this intersects with meanings of rural development and the politics of sustainability. Building on qualitative research carried out in the regions of Uppsala (Sweden) and Calabria (Italy), the article unveils the contradictory nature of agricultural digitalisation as a process intertwined with the capitalist development of agriculture that raises key political questions. The cases of Uppsala and Calabria, in particular, show that the transformation of dairy farming through automation and digitalisation is uneven and combined, being deeply connected to how politics of sustainability and rural development are embedded—and negotiated—in specific agrarian settings. The authors discuss their empirical findings in terms of new agrarian questions in Europe.

Introduction: This article offers an analysis of environmental communication (EC) and citizen science (CS) in the context of Environmental Monitoring and Assessment (EMA) for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 15 (Life on Land) in Chile and Sweden.Methods: The paper is based on fieldwork in two rural study areas of Chile and Sweden where we followed different CS initiatives in relation to EMA and Agenda 2030. We conducted interviews, analyzed documentation and conducted an SDG mapping workshop to understand the implementation of SDG 15 in these two rural forest settings.Results: Our findings suggest that CS has potential as a democratic innovation for environmental governance in both countries. However, we also found important barriers to the legitimacy of CS as a feature of EMA and local environmental governance in both countries. The paper situates CS in the wider governance and environmental communication processes in regional politics surrounding implementation of national policies for the use of natural resources.Discussion: The article offers new insights into the barriers and possibilities for public participation in environmental governance and policy at local levels, by addressing the interlinkages between environmental communication and citizen science in rural settings.