The effects of climate change depend on specific local circumstances, posing a challenge for worldwide research to comprehensively encompass the diverse impacts on various local social-ecological systems. Here we use a place-specific but cross-culturally comparable protocol to document climate change indicators and impacts as locally experienced and analyze their distribution. We collected first-hand data in 48 sites inhabited by Indigenous Peoples and local communities and covering all climate zones and nature-dependent livelihoods. We documented 1,661 site-agreed reports of change corresponding to 369 indicators. Reports of change vary according to climate zone and livelihood activity. We provide compelling evidence that climate change impacts on Indigenous Peoples and local communities are ongoing, tangible, widespread, and affect multiple elements of their social-ecological systems. Beyond potentially informing contextualized adaptation plans, our results show that local reports could help identify economic and non-economic loss and damage related to climate change impacts suffered by Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

India’s Green Revolution made the country a world leader in rice and wheat production, but it has taken its toll on people and the environment. In an era of climate change and population growth, agriculture must be made sustainable. Pathways to this ambitious goal require new approaches to agricultural policy and research. India’s green revolution has made the country a world leader in rice and wheat production, but at the expense of people and the environment. Here, we call for transformative changes in its agriculture to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining production levels.

A little over a year ago, the global community proposed\ud an ambitious new set of Sustainable Development Goals\ud (SDGs) to protect the environment and enhance human\ud well-being. Three months later, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, CoP21 in Paris, announced\ud equally ambitious new targets for action on climate\ud change. Such bold commitments have been facilitated\ud by development trends in several emerging economies.\ud India, for one, has made truly astonishing gains: the World Bank reports that in over just seven years, from 2004 to 2011, the number of Indian citizens living in acute poverty fell from 426 million to 263 million, a reduction in the proportion of the population in poverty from 38% to <22%\u

Agrobiodiversity is a multi-dimensional concept underlying all sustained agricultural productivity. Agrobiodiversity plays especially important roles in complex multifunctional landscapes that blend smallholder production with remnant forests and semi-natural vegetation. We define agrobiodiversity broadly to include five levels of diversity that influence agricultural production: intraspecies genetic variation, diversity of species and varieties in the farmer’s field, range of other species used in and around the farm, overall biodiversity of the landscape where the farm is situated, and large-scale agroecological zones or landforms. With specific reference to farming systems in hyperdiverse India, we highlight the essential roles played by agrobiodiversity in food security maintenance and examine key drivers of current agrobiodiversity loss. Innovative research and policy frameworks supporting agrobiodiversity conservation are urgently needed. We outline policies and initiatives needed to accelerate efforts to restore agrobiodiversity, and conclude by offering five actionable recommendations for rethinking agricultural research and development systems in India and the Global South. These shift the focus onto the essential networks of ecological relationships that support smallholder production. Especially in complex multifunctional landscapes, agrobiodiversity cannot be considered in isolation from wild biodiversity.