This week we look at Rewilding from the social perspective. Most of the challenges currently facing nature can be linked to human activity and more specific human prioritizations of one type of land use over another. So when we come to look at solutions to biodiversity loss (Rewilding being one of the most well known) its essential that we understand the role of people in making these solutions work.. It's hoped that Nature Recovery projects supported by local communities are likely to be more durable, inclusive and ultimately more sustainable. We explore this fascinating topic with three experts:
Dr. Calum Brown is a land system scientist interested in how land management affects ecosystems and societies. He uses a range of methods to investigate how people’s use of land might change in the future, and the potential for nature-based solutions to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss. Calum has worked in research and conservation in Scotland, the US, Slovakia and Germany, most recently as a Senior Researcher in Land Use Change & Climate at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He was raised and educated in the Highlands and holds a Masters from the University of the Highlands and Islands and a PhD (funded by a Microsoft Research Scholarship) from the University of St Andrews.
Josh Davis is a researcher at the Countryside and Community Research Institute. His research focuses on shifts in skills and behaviour in the transition from agriculture to nature-based recovery across England. H examines the underlying motivations, incentives, and barriers to local practitioners (farmers, land managers and agricultural advisers) involved in promoting landscape-scale, nature-based recovery.
Dr. Caitlin Hafferty is a researcher at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery at the University of Oxford. Caitlin is an expert in participatory, democratic and inclusive decision-making, particularly in planning and environmental decision-making. She campions the contributions of the social sciences to understanding sustainability transformations, and currently work on the social dimensions of nature recovery and Nature-based Solutions (NbS) initiatives in the UK.
The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery is interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within this podcast are those of the speakers alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, or its researchers.
The work of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery is made possible thanks to the support of the Leverhulme Trust.
This week we look at Rewilding from the social perspective. Most of the challenges currently facing nature can be linked to human activity and more specific human prioritizations of one type of land use over another. So when we come to look at solutions to biodiversity loss (Rewilding being one of the most well known) its essential that we understand the role of people in making these solutions work.. It's hoped that Nature Recovery projects supported by local communities are likely to be more durable, inclusive and ultimately more sustainable. We explore this fascinating topic with three experts:
Dr. Calum Brown is a land system scientist interested in how land management affects ecosystems and societies. He uses a range of methods to investigate how people’s use of land might change in the future, and the potential for nature-based solutions to mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss. Calum has worked in research and conservation in Scotland, the US, Slovakia and Germany, most recently as a Senior Researcher in Land Use Change & Climate at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He was raised and educated in the Highlands and holds a Masters from the University of the Highlands and Islands and a PhD (funded by a Microsoft Research Scholarship) from the University of St Andrews.
Josh Davis is a researcher at the Countryside and Community Research Institute. His research focuses on shifts in skills and behaviour in the transition from agriculture to nature-based recovery across England. H examines the underlying motivations, incentives, and barriers to local practitioners (farmers, land managers and agricultural advisers) involved in promoting landscape-scale, nature-based recovery.
Dr. Caitlin Hafferty is a researcher at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery at the University of Oxford. Caitlin is an expert in participatory, democratic and inclusive decision-making, particularly in planning and environmental decision-making. She campions the contributions of the social sciences to understanding sustainability transformations, and currently work on the social dimensions of nature recovery and Nature-based Solutions (NbS) initiatives in the UK.
The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery is interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within this podcast are those of the speakers alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, or its researchers.
The work of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery is made possible thanks to the support of the Leverhulme Trust.
Welcome to the nature recovery podcast. We're going to take a closer look at some of the solutions to counter biodiversity decline. And we'll find out more about the people behind these ideas. Hello, and welcome to the nature recovery podcast. So this week we're gonna be talking about rewilding, but not in the way that you might initially think. So rather than talking about the ecology, and herbivores, and apex predators, and all that good stuff, we can cover that in another podcast. We're going to be framing it from the social dimension. So looking actually the effect of rewilding on communities. What happens when you're doing rewilding projects, to local people, what they think about it, how you engage them, how you encourage participation, what that does when you're trying to do a rewilding project on a tight timescale. But the benefits of that and then more broadly thinking about society and the environment where we've got all these urgent environmental projects to try and sequester carbon or bring back biodiversity. If we don't frame them within the context of people and society, then we really are missing something. And thankfully, I've got three amazing experts with me this week, we're going to talk about some of the UK is flagship rewilding projects and telling us more about their expertise. So enough for me and over to them. I'm delighted today that I've got a group of experts. We're gonna be talking about rewilding. So to kick us off we have Josh Davis. Hi, all thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be involved and to be talking with you today. So yeah, I'm, I'm Josh, I'm a PhD researcher at the countryside and community research institute for CCRI, for sure. And that's based out of the University of Gloucestershire. I'm principally interested in skills acquisition and development for nature recovery. But beyond that issues of rewilding and cultural landscapes and so on, so forth. Thanks, Josh. Also joining us is Dr. Caitlin Haverty. Hi, I'm Caitlin. I'm a postdoc in social science with the leader who Centre for nature recovery, which is based at the environmental change Institute in School of Geography at the University of Oxford. I specialise in governance for nature, recovery and HBase solutions, specifically looking at how we can work in more inclusive, collaborative, equitable ways. It's very sensitive of local issues, while also being at scalable. Fantastic. Finally joining us, we're very glad to have Dr. Kevin Brown. Thanks. Hello. My name is Karla. And I'm co chief scientist with Highlands rewilding, which is a company operating across three sites in Scotland to restore we Wales and read people around. And I'm working on a range of scientific projects within that from natural social science, particularly focusing on community involvement in rewilding schemes and the benefits that can bring fantastic thank you all so much for being here. So to kick us off, just maybe let's find out a bit more about the projects that you've been involved with. So I mean, maybe Callum, you can start and tell us a bit about Highlands rewilding and the sites and what you're hoping to achieve. And then we can talk to Josh about Nachtigall? Sure, yeah. Handwriting is a fairly young company, a private company that was set up to take nature recovery to scale in the Scottish Highlands and beyond. By establishing a case for restoration rewilding, that that achieves reversals of biodiversity loss, stops the loss of carbon from these landscapes and begins to sequester more carbon again, and also tackles some of the really serious socio economic issues that we have in these parts of the UK. And so we're trying to establish a persuasive case for tackling these issues together, essentially producing nature based solutions in these areas. And a key part of that is monitoring what happens, what we're doing and what the outcomes are. And that includes measuring soil carbon, there are lots of different biodiversity monitoring methods, but also talking to local people with engaging them so they have control over what's going on, and also that we reflect their concerns and their aspirations in the information that we gather as we go. And so we hope that by doing that we will, well, we'll find out what works and what doesn't, and ultimately make a transferable example that can be applied elsewhere to generate these multiple benefits that the learning system needs to generate. Very interesting. And Josh, maybe is that similar to what's happening in Africa? Are there some differences there? What how would what should be your experience working with the team down there? Yeah, so So I had the pleasure of being involved with NASA gallon bikes. mention both Caitlin and Callum on a contracted commission to provide evidence led recommendations for developing best practice public and stakeholder engagement. And that was across the first side both be wildland in Lincolnshire. And in so doing, I guess, weaving my way through the growing debate surrounding engagement, land use and natural capital, like Highlands, rewilding matagal was established really to catalyse biodiversity recovery. And in this instance, driven by focused investment into rewilding degraded ecosystems fire a model of private land ownership, thus, the need for for engagement. Specifically, its mission is to deliver nature recovery at scale, to provide vital benefits for society and sustainable financial returns. purchased in late 2021. Boothby is one of the first 22 landscape recovery pilot projects. And then this like kind of process of developing that the following lessons learned, map and hoping to kind of demonstrate a innovative business model for landscape scale nature restoration that's funded through both natural capital payments, eco tourism, and so on. And I guess the the hope there is really of developing natural asset that is rooted both within the local landscape and community to maximise the kind of longer term societal benefits of of rewilding as a viable nature base solution. Thank you very for that overview. And I think you've hinted there about the engagement with people. And I think that's something I wanted to jump into. Because for many, and for some maybe listen to this podcast, rewilding is this extremely positive vision of, you know, regeneration, restoration, bringing back animals, bringing that life bringing nature. But clearly, if you look at some media stories, it's become very divisive. And obviously, there's whenever you talk about land use, or land use change, whatever it is, how land is used, or what land is for is a core belief for many people. And there's also numerous historical and cultural reasons why a change of land use, can be can cause a weariness in all bull socio demographic groups. So, you know, just with that initial engagement, engagement, and I guess with rewilding in your in sort of the titles of both of the projects you've been working with? Can you give us an idea of some of the the opinions you've met with from from people around the projects, the type of impacts this had, and I guess whether you were surprised, either positively or negatively by by some of the the initial reactions you had? Maybe Callum, do you want us to speak to that first? Yeah, sure. I think you're right, that you, you find a whole range of different opinions, when it comes to any matter of land use, you know, is the way that we use land cuts across all of these different objectives and values that we have. And so we would like others find the whole spectrum from initially positive, initially negative, quite a lot in the middle, you know, people who are waiting, see, we're interested to see what happens. And it's certainly important to engage those people across that whole spectrum. Not only because opinions can change, but they can shape what we do on the ground, as well. I can help us design management processes that actually, you know, achieve the things that people want to be happening, even if they start with a potentially negative perception of the world. I guess we also encountered, you know, that there's a big mix of land uses occurring in most of these landscapes. And there's often the sense that there's space for some rewilding, as long as other things are happening alongside nothing. That's why this particularly British type of rewilding emerging that does do lots of other things, as well as you know, natural restoration on the two banks. And Josh, was that similar to, to what you experienced in that ago? Definitely, I think, you know, zooming out almost like context is really important, compared to the US or the EU that kind of have remaining wilderness areas or in some cases have suffered high levels of rural abandonment. rewilding in the UK, and particularly within England operates on smaller spatial scales. And that's kind of further compounded by intested social landscapes against this kind of banned backdrop of historical land ownership. And as such, there, there are definitely inherent trade offs. This can lead to kind of diminished environmental ambition, conflict and kind of a further in as the nature versus dichotomy. And I guess, in speaking to that, ultimately, I think that whilst theoretical principles and the common definitions place an emphasis on the health world or ecosystems in practice, it's quite dead. rewilding is an inherently human aspiration that results in a kind of a range of event implementation and if done wrong conflicts, but on a more personal note, like Scotland, Wales and Welsh culture has a deep rooted connection to land and natural landscapes. And I guess the scars of the historical kind of things such as the Enclosure Acts alongside the decline of traditional industries continue to shape and influence that evolving relationship. Yeah, I've found that many continue to broadly commend the kind of prescriptive maintenance of surrounding natural landscapes, unaware of what was lost and the kind of need for change. But for that end, rewilding, in turn, also represents and kind of oak sentiments tied to heritage and identity. The netigate Allen specifically Boothby wildland, as with many other early projects of its kind, there are critics with questions often levelled surrounding issues of, I guess, the perceived need for restorative action alongside the ecological effectiveness of rewilding and kind of conflicts between disparate land use agendas. But I think the takeaway there is that and I guess the key point that I want to emphasise is that negative opinions represent a small but often vocal minority. Thus, through effective engagement processes, organisations can work to navigate these conflicting interests to ensure that those voices don't come to dominate the conversation. Okay, very interesting. And maybe Kailyn, if you want to kind of come in here, and you can maybe speak about some of the broader trends around this debate. And perhaps also, you know, introduce actually some of the work that you were doing with Highlands rewilding. Yeah, definitely. And I think it's worth really emphasising that these issues, tensions, conflicts, trade offs, are reflective of much broader trends around land use environmental decision making deliberative democratic debate. And it's actually, I think unhelpful to focus on these kind of conflicts very explicitly. I think that it's worth kind of reframing people and opposition, from something that's an inherent like, insurmountable obstacle, towards an opportunity and an opportunity to have a discussion about those issues and to embrace the fact that there are always going to be very diverse views of what nature is its values. And these are deeply rooted in cultural and historical aspects of the landscape. So I think that's a given. And it's certainly not something that is unique to rewilding or even the environment sector. So I think starting from this base, that this is, you know, really speaking to much broader trends around how we conduct democratic decision making around our land around our natural resources, whether that's in the UK or further afield. So we're sort of starting from this position that there is a wealth of particularly social science evidence that helps us really understand this really understand these diverse views and how we can navigate them how we can harness this as an opportunity. And this is where our work on engagement with both NASA Gao and Highlands rewilding and a range of other organisations as well, on really how we can leverage an engagement process to really harness that fact. So to harness the value of having a good, healthy, deliberative discussion around issues that brings together lots of different actors, lots of different voices and perspectives. I think the key challenge here the key interesting parts. Scientifically, definitely, but more broadly, is how we can foster these debates that are essential to tackling very complex, very multifaceted sustainability challenges at the pace needed, so when we're, you know, working on something that's inherently a very urgent challenge. So that's something that we thought about is through the engagement work that we did is how to conduct rewilding and nature restoration work that is very locally situated and locally sensitive, but in a way that is realistic and pragmatic, have these kind of constraints maybe around resources or timescales. And this needs to scale out as well. So it was a really interesting, interesting project. On both with Highlands rewilding, we developed helped develop their Engagement Roadmap, and I think that's gone on to lead to some really exciting work there. Josh, I think he'd probably introduce the specific work with Nat Abell and we've also from the levy Hume centre recently launched some guidance called the recipe for engage Minutes, which is really focusing on how you can embrace engagement as a instead of a one size fits all kind of very prescriptive cookie cutter technique, how to embrace kind of the messiness of, of local views, this diversity of opinions and how to harness that as an opportunity, rather than really get bogged down bias is an inherent obstacle that can't be overcome. So yeah, really looking at the power of harnessing these more deliberative discussions and having some very clear cut ways to do that. That's realistic and pragmatic. For organisations. Yeah, thank you, Kate. Now, I'll come back to you, Josh, because I, so Kayla indicated something there, which is not particularly nice schemes. But in some environmental schemes or restorative schemes, you know, there's, there's time pressure, there's a certain pot of money, it has to be used by a certain point. And the idea is like, let's get up and go and restore. And so this messy engagement of going out and deliberately seeking views that might not be supportive and working with them can seem kind of counterintuitive. So I know you worked on the best practice engagement report for landscape scale, niche recovery. And without asking you to summarise, you know, the report in two minutes, are there any kind of key findings that that you can particularly talk about that, that maybe speak to sort of working with those tensions? Yeah, I guess, in time quite nicely to the spirit of some of Naftogaz core values. For instance, collaboration multiplies impact. I think that's a good starting point. I think it's important to note that with work such as this, and the guidance and recommendations that are included within the kind of reports raised throughout this discussion, that they're not kept siloed, but are shared more broadly, whether that's with other pilot schemes or, you know, in stage nature recovery initiatives, and as you said, whilst we probably don't have time today to work through all of those recommendations, and there's no doubt overlap between the work conducted. I think, for me, the importance of institutionalising engagement as an ongoing processes is so vital, not as a one off, add on or tick box activity. And I think for it to be truly effective, that needs to integrate that local knowledge alongside scientific expertise for for really robust decision making. As we've kind of touched on, there is no one size fits all approach to engagement. But that's definitely a strength processes can be adapted to local context. And they can use a variety of participatory, whether it's in person or digital tools and approaches. And then as a final point, I'd say, there's some emerging kind of thinking surrounding how we best go about thinking big, but acting local to ensure that these kind of organisational ambitions are rooted in local communities, after all, worldwide, worldwide renowned sorry, is of little use to the local communities that directly influence and affect projects success and failure. Yeah, thanks, Josh. And I think on that sort of thinking big, but really rooted in in the local That, to me sort of tees up I want to talk to Calum about to VALIC. Because Because This to me is very interesting. I don't know all the details. So I'd love to hear more. But, you know, reporting says that the Hymans routing recently sold 19 hectares of its timber Alec estate to the local community body, the timber Alec initiative in what's been described as a progressive model for community engagement. Now, given huge amounts of land in the UK, and other country, you know, are in the hands of of rich landowners or organisations, it's quite rare to see communities getting access to or even or even a negotiating seat at the table sometimes. So can you tell us a bit more about how this came about how long it took the challenges involved? And I guess also from from a nature organisation that does have commercial aspirations behind it sort of how that sale of land or community engagement how that kind of makes sense to to the overall strategy and whether you you know, it's been a smooth ride or whether it's had a lot of learning along the way. Yeah, that's a big question or group of questions, really, I think to take the last part first. The, in our case the organisation is it is a commercial organisation, but it's emotionally in order to demonstrate that management on this kind restorative management can be economically viable, rather than to simply doing something because of course, there are more established more profitable ways of managing land then trying to restore it, and selling pieces of land to the community. Of course, you could do other things that would make money more easily. So the purpose is to find a way that takes these boxes of achieving environmental benefit and community benefit, while still being economically viable for others to do. And so we don't really see a huge tension In that case, I mean, unfortunately, we have to sell land to the community at cost, you know, it's not a, it's not a charitable donation in that sense. But it's also not a money making element. But it is part of the, the core mission of creating community benefit. And actually, the process of getting to that point was involved a lot of work, and quite a lot of time, months, rather than years, I mean, more than one year, but, you know, it's not a very long process to date. But a huge amount of time on both sides has gone into that. And it takes a lot of efforts to get there. But it's at the same time, it's been a very encouraging process, because it's demonstrated that you can combine these these objectives of social and environmental benefits being generated. And we've been able to negotiate with the t value initiative throughout which to identify shared objectives, we have a memorandum of understanding with them, for the estate that lists 24 shared objectives for our management there, they help us set up a local management board, which has representatives of different groups within the community who meet every month to discuss management of the estate, and, you know, basically decide what's happening and what we're aiming for. And one of the key objectives here was to sell land to local community and support housing for local people, and so on, and so forth. And those are things that then have begun to happen. Since I'm as you're welding purchased the estate. So it's, you know, it's, of course, a detailed and sometimes difficult process, but it's by no means impossible. And I think this experience has shown us as it can be replicated in other places. It's not all rosy, of course, because we're still in this absurdly concentrated land ownership system that we have in in Scotland in particular, and, you know, single landowners, companies, whatever, we're never going to be able to fix that by themselves. And the overall context within which we operate remains unhelpful. But this is at least a way of chipping away at and on individual pieces of land, providing those those things that we need to begin to rectify that balance. Hmm, yeah, thanks, Callum. And I'm actually interested because we sort of said earlier about this, there's, you know, engagement, needing to be ongoing. And, you know, hanergy welding has kind of three sites and swiping where like ecological interventions or active already happening, you know, from from tree plantings, all kinds of restoration techniques. So, now that if you'd like things have begun and or have been going for a while, how does that participation, that stakeholder engagement continue to play a part in your thinking as you evolve, or on the stages of, you know, the the next intervention? Can you speak to that maybe a bit, I think it becomes more specific in the sense that, you know, all the array of options that either are open up the beginning or that people think might be open up, the stars get narrowed down, you know, people see what we're doing. And what is wonderful about often that is not as dramatic, or as negative as people might expect. And, you know, specific things are coming out of it that fit in with what people want. Specific examples, but the third one might be the regenerative agriculture, actually, you know, we have areas of grazing on all three of our estates. And those are remaining under grazing management producing local food, and other products from that. And that's, you know, very welcome thing. And often, the process of engagement leads to different ways of using level and to provide the benefits that people want. So I think becomes easier you build up trust over time as well. people experience the range of outcomes that are coming up, and that gives gives rise to other ideas. So if if it gets off to a good start, then I think can be very much a self sustaining process. That's great to hear. And I'm gonna take this next question open to everyone because I, my bet would be if we asked a number of people, you know, what do we need to do to improve nature in the UK or globally or biodiversity? engagement and participation would not be in the top 10 answers that people I would my imagine and I'm probably biassed, but you know, restoration, biodiversity these kinds of topics will come up about the doing the action rather than the sort of the people focused part but I think demonstrate how how important it is, you know, we everything is sort of socially defined or politically defined. So I guess to everyone, you know, what are your thoughts and how we can encourage and enable, you know, more organisations You know, like Hannah's you're writing an article to sort of foster this evidence, lead best practice culture of engagement, maybe you can have it, you know, think lessons that you've learned from being involved in his initiatives, or specific benefits. I'll throw it open to anybody that wants to talk to that. From our from my point of view, I think that demonstrating that it's possible is a big thing. And people don't often know how to tackle this. So it is making it possible making the benefits clear. And also, it is it is essential, you know, we, we do need to tackle loss of biodiversity and the loss of carbon carbon emissions from the land system urgently. But often, you know, we all of us don't appreciate quite how local an issue that is as well as being a global issue. And it's, it's essential to bring people along with that, you know, we can all contribute to some extent, and the lung system can certainly contribute at local levels, to these big problems. And you don't you don't get that message across without engaging with people. So it's a really good point. And I think I'm keen not to speak for anyone, whether it's unethical or, or broader. But I guess as a personal perspective, I think, you know, we've we've already touched upon within this discussion that the debate is often reduced down to quite binary conflicts or dichotomies, you know, think land, sphere and land sharing food versus nature and so on. And whilst there are merits to doing that, at least in my view, a systems approach, where and this kind of paradigm shift that nature recovery brings about from protecting nature through obligation to kind of almost actively encouraging this range of restorative practices, it really shows that we do need a multiplicity of, of different of different interventions. And I think in reconciling the kind of complex balanced of an interplay of factors there. That's where social science and engagement is so key to really move beyond misconceptions and foster kind of representation of overlooked harder to reach in and marginalised groups alongside more broadly enhancing local culture and values, promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing across kind of landscape scale and in catchment initiatives. And, you know, effectively identifying and mitigating the potential risks that maximise the benefits. I think as well. I mean, to put it, quite bluntly, these crises around biodiversity loss and climate change, and a range of other big societal challenges, the root cause of that is people. So people have to be part of the solution, you know, these, these problems, never we're not about people. So naturally, any solution has to involve that social element. And one of the core problems is that across the board, you know, the UK and elsewhere, environmental solutions, so often framed is very kind of narrow technological or financial fixes, quick fixes, rather than something that is inherently deeply social, and political and must involve, you know, this isn't just about involving people at a local level in, you know, a changing field nearby their house, this is something that speaks much more broadly to political institutions to economic reform to democracy. So my point earlier about this, speaking to much broader debates, so we absolutely need to have that social element. And I think historically, this is something that has been lacking in the UK in particular, in terms of really bringing people bringing that social element to the very heart of environmental projects. And that includes rewilding, so too often you see projects, rewilding projects included were engagements communication, bringing people on board trying to gather support happens right at the very end of the project before kind of all decisions have been made, you know, after rather after all decisions have been made, and after that evidence base has been formed, which is just kind of way too late setting yourself up for failure. So it's really this kind of discussion around engagement around participation around social inclusion is all about bringing that people element right to the start right to the very centre is something that we inherently consider alongside biodiversity and climate aspects of the project. The social needs to be in there too, as an inherent part, and I like that Kalam noted that kind of broader role of the state and other institutions for actually supporting this. So we can often get very fixated on individual organisations and specific projects, but there is a big role. for institutions, so finance, the state, etc. In supporting this to happen, there is a huge role in it. We, you know, we can't forget that can't forget that there is a big role of the state, for example, for supporting community landownership. There's a big role of the state in supporting reform. And we can also think beyond that as well. So yeah, I think that is absolutely crucial. And engagement can be one of those ways where to lesser or greater extent, organisations can start thinking about it in a very real way, how to really positively embed people as an opportunity rather than an obstacle, or something that's inherently going to overcomplicate or slow things down. But it's something that fundamentally has to happen as part of this shift towards more sustainable outcomes for for everyone, and tackling these multiple aspects of these very complicated challenges that we're facing. Yeah, thank you for that. And I, I certainly can't speak as an expert or a practitioner, but I think I can speak at times of my experience as a stakeholder. And I know, there's so much data out there on social media, and I think about how bad things are. And I think it is overpowering and paralysing, but it's really interesting getting involved participation. To me, it's a great way of popping my biases, and actually realising there are multiple people from different areas of the of the of the spectrum or from from completely different kinds of cultures all have valid views. So I learned from it, but also just that having that say, being heard whether or not what I say is useful is there's something very, very deeply personal healing about, you know, going to a meeting and saying that you care, rather than sort of staying on Twitter and looking at how many butterflies are dying, or how much the ice is melting. And so I think there's a two there's a, you know, it's inherent for organisations for the state for bodies to encourage participation. But then I think there's also a call for like, for, you know, if you care about these issues, yeah, do participate, do politely and nicely, don't shout at people on Twitter, write them, write them, write them, good letters, or go go to the to the focus groups. So yeah, thank you. That's been really interesting, I think, to kind of cover, we haven't touched into the touch at the ecological potential benefits rather than the other multiple things that these schemes are doing. But I think it's been really interesting to touch on that participation and engagement approach. So we will wrap it up now with our regular question, which is what does nature recovery mean to you? So I'm going to start with, with Dr. Kevin Brown, what does nature recovery mean to you that phrase, a lot of things, I guess, to express it briefly, it means, well, reversing this, crazily rapid loss of biodiversity that we caused, and allowing nature natural systems to be resilient to climate change that is happening, it's going to happen more and more. And that's not just a sort of end in itself to sustain these systems. But it is a self preservation objective, basically, you know, we need to be able to keep producing food in the future. under climate change. We need all the multiple benefits that healthy ecosystems bring us that we're at risk of losing, you know, it really is an urgent and urgent matter. So it has a bit of a complete package. Really, again, to give you a very social sciency response. And say that nature, Recovery has to be considered as a kind of a journey, almost something that's continuously changing. Because people have such diverse values of what nature is in the first place. I think it's really crucial when we start thinking about nature recovery, or nature based solutions, or rewilding, or whatever it is that we really just appreciate the diverse experiences and values that people hold to landscapes and nature. So by starting with assumptions about what nature recovery, even as you're already kind of potentially excluding some people's experiences and some cultural experiences and values of landscapes. So I think considering nature recovery is not something that's a fixed endpoint to reach or some you know, I'm not an ecologist. So I don't think in this way, but more just an ongoing kind of messy process that we can think about how to work with people and nature together to achieve kind of multiple beneficial outcomes. Yeah, it really is a great one, isn't it? And I think I think part of the the kind of benefit of doing this in asking various experts and practitioners in their fields what what that means is you do get to really pick up on the variety of perceptions and the distinctions between them. I think to me, it really does represent that kind of paradigm shift it's it's one of a kind of equity and hope of building resilient multifunctional future landscapes but whilst doing so actively involving and and hope Fully benefiting all sections of society, particularly those that have been historically marginalised or underrepresented within traditional forms of environmental decision making. And I think then, coming full circle, it's of recognising both the social and ecological aspects are intertwined versus less sustainable, sorry, and holistic outcomes. Until recently, as we've kind of touched upon, this social element has been almost devalued within this space. And I think reframing that offers a route to combat embedded inequalities and ensure inclusivity within this kind of process to ensure that we bring about recovery at the scale and pace that is needed. I kind of returned to Caitlin's point of viewing humans as opportunities, not obstacles, and that's a great one to end on. Yeah, perfect. I couldn't say any better other than just to thank you, Callum, Josh, and Caitlin, I feel like I've ever I learned a load from these. And I love that sense of Yeah, the human nature side of things that we have to be involved. But thank you all for the wonderful work you're doing restoring nature encouraging participation, and working in this great field. Yeah, thanks very much. You've been listening to the nature recovery podcast with me, Stephen Thomas. Please don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you can, please consider leaving us a review, as it will really help other people to find us. Also, why not consider sharing this episode with someone you know, you never know. You might get them interested in the wonderful field of nature recovery. If you want to find out more about the activities of the leader whom Centre for nature recovery, you can find us on Twitter at nature recovery, or you can visit our website for more information. That's www dot makes recovery.ox.ac Wk thanks so much for listening
