Stakeholder engagement for landscape-scale recovery

This month sees the publication of The Nattergal Report on Stakeholder Engagement Best Practice for Landscape-scale Nature Recovery Projects. Developed for the Boothby Wildland Landscape Recovery project, and funded via the DEFRA Landscape Recovery Development Phase, the report was led by the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) at the University of Gloucestershire and the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and Agile Initiative projects at Oxford University, with the objective of establishing a framework for enhancing and embedding stakeholder engagement into nature restoration.

Ben Hart, Head of Operations at Nattergal said: “As part of our Landscape Recovery Phase 1 Pilot development project for Boothby Wildland, we reached out to Dr. Caitlin Hafferty at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery (LCNR), and Josh Davis at the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) to help us to understand how to develop and deliver an exemplar best practice programme for our first Nattergal nature restoration project. Josh, Caitlin, and their colleagues did an amazing job of reviewing all available guidance and frameworks on the subject and condensed them into a digestible 10-principle approach that we could implement on site.

• Read about Nattergal’s 10-point approach: https://www.nattergal.co.uk/blog/stakeholder-engagement-best-practice-nattergals-ten-point-approach
• Nattergal’s full report: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62bdbafba41de5210660365f/t/67066c880f1d7260c5c72eee/1728474250091/Nattergal+Report+on+Stakeholder+Engagement+Best+Practice.pdf
• Executive summary of Nattergal’s report: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62bdbafba41de5210660365f/t/670910c0c1dcca2ca70e3ef0/1728647362954/Stakeholder+Engagement+Best+Practice+-+Executive+Summary.pdf
• Governance guidance that helped inform Nattergal’s report, including links to case studies and lessons learned: https://nbshub.naturebasedsolutionsinitiative.org/governance/
• Highlands Rewilding’s Engagement Roadmap: https://www.highlandsrewilding.co.uk/blog/community-engagement-in-rewilding
• Podcast with Highlands Rewilding on people and participation: https://www.naturerecovery.ox.ac.uk/news/new-nature-recovery-podcast-rewilding-people-and-participation/

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.

Transcript

00:00:05 Stephen Thomas 

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. 

00:00:20 Stephen Thomas 

Hello and welcome to the Nature Recovery podcast. I'm Stephen Thomas, but you won't hear too much from me this week because Caitlin Haverty is going to be hosting the podcast. She's going to be talking to the folks over at Natal, which is one of England's flagship defunded landscape scale, nature recovery schemes, and they'll be talking about stakeholder engagement for landscape scale, nature recovery. 

00:00:41 Stephen Thomas 

All based run report on sacred engagement that was led by the countryside and Community Research Institute. So enough from me and over to them. 

00:00:52 Caitlin Hafferty 

Hi, my name is Caitlin Halferty. I'm a postdoctoral searcher and environmental social science here at the Leaf Hume Centre for Nature Recovery. And today I'm joined with Josh, Lauren and Ben, who Lauren and Ben are from Matagal Limited. Would you like to introduce yourselves? 

00:01:10  Lorienne Whittle 

Yes, hello lorianne. I'm the landscape recovery lead at Boothby Wildland, which is the first site of materials and the one which has taken on this or best practice stakeholder engagement as a case study and sort of managing the site and the team here, which includes many things including the. 

00:01:28 Ben Hart 

The Community engagement site and my name is Ben. I am the head of operations at not a, which is the parent company that owns and operates the three rewilding sites that we have both 3 wildland being one of them. We have another two sites, one called hyphen wildland in Norfolk and a third called. 

00:01:48 Ben Hart 

Worlds Park Wildland in Essex. 

00:01:51 Josh Davis 

Also thanks for having me back Caitlin or occurring guest plan. So it's it's good to be involved but yeah. So Josh Davis through PhD student with the countryside and Community Research Institute, which is based. 

00:02:04 Josh Davis 

To the University of Gloucestershire and I. 

00:02:07 Josh Davis 

Was involved with them, with NATO. 

00:02:09 Josh Davis 

Go through this best practice and engagement contracted Commission. 

00:02:13 Caitlin Hafferty 

Amazing. Thanks everyone and it's really good to have. 

00:02:16 Caitlin Hafferty 

You back Josh. 

00:02:17 Caitlin Hafferty 

First, maybe a bit of background. That'd be really great to hear. What is Matagal doing, why it's important and specifically with ****** wildland, what's the, what's the kind of vision there? What projects have been happening and and how is engagement essential part of that? 

00:02:32 Ben Hart 

OK, I'll, I'll start and talk a little bit about Nata. GAIL, which is. 

00:02:37 Ben Hart 

Danish for Nightingale, I'm wondering. And Natalie's been set up by a number of founders, including Charlie Burrell, who is the founder and owner of the the net wide Landers state, Ben Goldsmith, and and a number of others. 

00:02:57 Ben Hart 

And has been created to understate nature restoration at scale. 

00:03:04 Ben Hart 

The kind of official mission is to deliver nature, restoration and scale to deliver vital benefits to society and sustainable financial returns. So we. 

00:03:14 Ben Hart 

Call it three-part mission. 

00:03:16 Ben Hart 

Large scale nature restoration projects pretty obvious in terms of what that is vital benefits to society is. 

00:03:23 Ben Hart 

Carbon sequestration. It's water retention. It's it's obviously biodiversity increase and supporting nation species, but and this is the kind of relevant part here, it's also providing services to the local community. It's creating jobs, it's creating well-being opportunities, it's engagement and education. 

00:03:44 Ben Hart 

Schools and and so the kind of vital benefits is is is the whole package and and importantly we the third part is the sustainable financial returns. So we've been set up as a private for profit company and our mission is to and we are aiming to create a business model. 

00:04:01 Ben Hart 

For Land Management for nature restoration that creates positive returns for investors so that we can create nature as an investable asset so that investors can be confident to invest in nature restoration projects like Bigsby wildland and the expectation of a of a fair return, not not crazy returns. 

00:04:22 Ben Hart 

But enough that it's it's a viable investment opportunity if we can do that, we believe that we can access lots, you know, millions and billions of of private financing into this market, which is sorely needed to fill the gap that we. 

00:04:36 Ben Hart 

Have in the UK and globally. 

00:04:38  Lorienne Whittle 

And I'll just introduce Boothby. So three years ago we he was 617 hectares of intensively arable farm land, much like everything else. Quite frankly, that you find in the southern corner of Lincolnshire. And then that girl bought it just under three years ago with the vision of of rewilding. 

00:04:57  Lorienne Whittle 

Site. So we've been on a transition out of intensive variables since then. We've done that slowly for a number of reasons. The science behind it, pragmatism's learning about the. 

00:05:08  Lorienne Whittle 

And enabling us to have time to work with the local community. And excitingly, just this last harvest, we've harvested the last of our wheat in the autumn of 2024. So I can now say that all parts of the 617 hectares are in either one or three years into their rewelding journey, just really exciting. 

00:05:28  Lorienne Whittle 

We spent that time at BB and as I said, doing lots and lots of monitoring from carbon to biodiversity and and a lot of engagement at all levels. And that's academics from all around the UK coming using lots of local specialist. 

00:05:42  Lorienne Whittle 

And and working with the local community. So we've spent a long time planning sort of vision to be. Now we're in the cusp of actually making some of that actionable and I, I guess what I'd say is I'd hope that B you'd see the reality of the matter gal mission on the ground. And I guess what we're here to talk about today is the bit about the. 

00:06:02  Lorienne Whittle 

Sort of embedding in local communities and the stakeholder engagement. 

00:06:06  Lorienne Whittle 

So briefly is also, it's worth mentioning one of the pilot landscape recovery, the landscape scale Elms post CAP funding mechanisms and Debra and and we kind of sort of talked about as being the pilot of the pilots if you like. And so within those pilots everyone. 

00:06:26  Lorienne Whittle 

Most people took two years being a single land owner. We we went through landscape recovery development phase of seed funding, if you. 

00:06:33  Lorienne Whittle 

Like to think about these plans and quite a bit faster and we're just again on the cusp of looking at what that looks like for a 30 year agreement with Defra and and really importantly in part of that. So the six plans involved in that landscape recovery and the obvious things that you would need to do like the budget, you know, where's the money coming from, what's being spent on the project? 

00:06:53  Lorienne Whittle 

Government, the Land Management plan, essentially what you're going to do with the land but. 

00:06:58  Lorienne Whittle 

And also there's a stakeholder engagement plan involved with that and a site access plan. So two of the six plans really especially relevant to what we're talking about today. So that has really helped guided us and the best practice report has come directly out of that stakeholder engagement plan with with yourselves being commissioned to to carry that out and it's been. 

00:07:18  Lorienne Whittle 

Really a delight to work with you both through that match and. 

00:07:20  Lorienne Whittle 

See it happen. 

00:07:22 Caitlin Hafferty 

On the ground as well. Thank you so much. And I think it's really tiring to hear just how community engagement can be. 

00:07:30 Caitlin Hafferty 

And as a really central part of something that quite often is just boiled down to its by diversity and its climate counterparts, I think often people in the community elements can be left as an afterthought or, you know, a an add-on or a kind of emerging benefit from ecosystem services. But it's really great to hear how this can not only be a central part of landscape recovery. 

00:07:52 Caitlin Hafferty 

Approach. 

00:07:52 Caitlin Hafferty 

Others, but also as part of high integrity or high quality approach to attracting investment into nature restoration at scale. Josh turning to you, but I'd be really interested to hear kind of how you became involved in this project and saying that obviously I know because I was involved with you, but for the people listening. 

00:08:13 Caitlin Hafferty 

And how did you become involved in this project and and why kind of from your point of view is engagement so core to doing nature recovery well? 

00:08:23 Josh Davis 

So yeah, thanks Caitlin. So. 

00:08:25 Josh Davis 

I guess the point of this would have been touched upon in our last recording, but essentially I was approached back last year now following initial conversations between the leave of Human Centre and with Ben and that GAL and then indeed the CRO given overlap between this and the broader remit of my PhD. 

00:08:43 Josh Davis 

I think engagement. 

00:08:45 Josh Davis 

Whether it's public, whether it's stakeholders of of of particular interest, or whether it's community orientated is, is so key to. 

00:08:53 Josh Davis 

To improving land use decision making and for achieving mutually beneficial outcomes. Ultimately through actively including individuals and organizations in the decisions that have the potential to influence or affect them. And I think through that you're able to foster a sense of agency for. 

00:09:14 Josh Davis 

Change you know as we. 

00:09:16 Josh Davis 

Then towards bigger thinking, bigger picture thinking that I believe that social science insights. 

00:09:22 Josh Davis 

Are quite valuable. 

00:09:23 Josh Davis 

Not only in moving past. 

00:09:25 Josh Davis 

Some of the misconceptions that often dominate this field but then also minimizing conflicts and and fostering representation. 

00:09:32  Lorienne Whittle 

And. 

00:09:33 Josh Davis 

In ultimately what our human dominated landscapes, you know, whether it's actions for addressing and adapting to climate change, whether it's achieving food security or tackling the biodiversity crisis, all these issues are embedded in and ultimately depend upon how land is managed. So I think that's the that's the aim and take home for. 

00:09:52 Josh Davis 

With the role in which social? 

00:09:54 Josh Davis 

Science can play with it and all that. 

00:09:57 Caitlin Hafferty 

Amazing. And I'm glad you mentioned social science, because I think again, the social sciences can often be kind of sidelined from some of these discussions as not seen as directly relevant in terms of the science and evidence base for landscape recovery projects. So yeah, that's really exciting to hear that a summary of of how social science. 

00:10:18 Caitlin Hafferty 

Contribute. 

00:10:19 Caitlin Hafferty 

And so getting to the nitty gritty of the report, maybe I know that there are 10 steps, and I think those listening can turn to the report and there's a really great summary as well to look at those 10 steps in more detail. But I guess just for those listening, it might be really interesting to hear just exactly how this played out. 

00:10:39 Caitlin Hafferty 

On the ground in the real world in these projects, so Ben and Lorianne kind. 

00:10:46 Caitlin Hafferty 

How have you seen this influencing? What's happened at Boothby and how do you see this kind of influencing other projects that Natal are involved in, either in the UK or further afield? But what are some kind of, yeah, tangible practical examples that you can give us of of how this has translated? 

00:11:04 Ben Hart 

Should I start with just kind of the why from our end as well? Kind of as so, you know NASCAR has been set up to deliver. 

00:11:07 Ben Hart 

Yes. 

00:11:13 Ben Hart 

Best practice across everything we do and we're in this kind of. 

00:11:18 Ben Hart 

New market, mature markets that are all slowly growing and slowly starting to take shape. There's lots of interest in the markets, but recognising that the kind of the main nature market that's functioning moment which is carbon credits has had a lot of challenges with integrity and really sort of making sure that it's what is happening is you know the funding is actually getting to the big on the ground and then and then. 

00:11:40 Ben Hart 

The projects are actually having. 

00:11:42 Ben Hart 

Not having negative impacts elsewhere, so there's a lot of lessons that we can learn from this. So when we set up NASCAR, we wanted to. 

00:11:48 

You. 

00:11:49 Ben Hart 

Really understand and really deliver what best practice? High integrity natural capital was, be it carbon, be it biodiversity, be it water, whatever it is. 

00:11:58 Ben Hart 

And so and and we looked into it and there's a lot of talk around the mechanisms. So it could be you can talk about policy like biodiversity again or it could be voluntary biodiversity, carbon credits that. Yeah, everything's kind of on the table at the moment, but and we and there's no clear routes at the moment. So and that again we were very much kind of what can we focus on what can we control as we get going with the projects and the two areas that we. 

00:12:22 Ben Hart 

We felt with the right things to do where? 

00:12:25 Ben Hart 

You know, going deep on the science and the data and the and all the information we're collecting about the actual natural systems on our sites, but then in tandem with that, we felt that actually the the best thing we could do was really work on the the stakeholder social side of things to really understand what is a best practice. 

00:12:46 Ben Hart 

Project and how can we how can? 

00:12:48 Ben Hart 

We deliver project. 

00:12:48 Ben Hart 

Is that people want to have in their local area. It is a change. It is a different situation from the traditional farming. But even the traditional farming is only traditional for the last few. 

00:12:57 Ben Hart 

100 years, so these. 

00:12:58 Ben Hart 

You know, these kind of rural places where in you know that it is a change from their existing practices. So how can we how can we go about it the right way, how can we engage with people? 

00:13:08 Ben Hart 

How can we understand what they want and? 

00:13:10 Ben Hart 

And what was valuable for them in their communities and and and that for us became like a really core tenant of of what we want to do. One of our values is collaboration, multiplies impact and the and the other value is one of the other values is act local. So we really want to. 

00:13:26 Ben Hart 

Acts in a way that people want us to be there. They want native our projects to be within their local community because they get so much value from it. So I think that's kind of the where we where we came from and and we felt if we got those two things right, whatever happens in terms of the nature market, whatever mechanisms become reality, those two core concepts are still. 

00:13:46 Ben Hart 

You know that that that's what will keep us into our integrity. That will keep us at the front of the market as we. 

00:13:50  Lorienne Whittle 

And. 

00:13:52 Ben Hart 

So I think that's that's, that's where we started from. And obviously, Caitlin, we kind of knew each other from the work you've been doing with hand through warning and and obviously Jeremy, who's the Jeremy LEGO's the founder of handwriting is also one of the other founders of national as well. So when we were looking at looking up the concepts for the landscape recovery pilot and we had a chance and we and we were very. 

00:14:12 Ben Hart 

Lucky enough to get some. 

00:14:14 Ben Hart 

Funding through that initial development phase and to be able to work with yourselves to develop this best practice report so that that's just kind of setting the scene of kind of why we did it. And I'll sort of hand over to Laurie in terms. 

00:14:24 Ben Hart 

Of has actually been delivering it. 

00:14:26 Ben Hart 

On the ground and who can. 

00:14:27 Ben Hart 

Give us some of the key lessons I think. Yeah. And I think it's starting. 

00:14:31  Lorienne Whittle 

And the the declare funding through landscape recovery that's brought us here today, I would say that it's fabulous that the stakeholder engagement plan and site access plan were two of the six plans as they said. So this has enabled all the projects in round one and two to have have this focus and if I can be as bold as to sort of summarize. 

00:14:52  Lorienne Whittle 

Feelings from the round one project managers, the 22 projects we we've often come from an ecological conservation project management background and I think a general feeling was OK. 

00:15:05  Lorienne Whittle 

Is inherently, we all know it's the right thing to do to to work on these plans, but we don't have the expertise in, for example, the social sciences. So recognizing that whilst as a single landowner and single entity for landscape recovery that to girls and we've got a lot of the schools for the other plans in house, but outsourcing this one was a really. 

00:15:26  Lorienne Whittle 

Sensible thing to do in terms of that best practice guidance and so it's great that it's got that optics in that place in the budget. But how do we deliver it? What does Google look like essentially and that's what we've come to you know through this report and delivering that on the ground be and I think it's it's enabled us to step. 

00:15:44  Lorienne Whittle 

And look really critically at what we're doing. And quite honestly, I think this is one of the tricky things with stick, with engagement is it's quite easy to do a little and to say you're doing great things without actually looking at how that's been doing, whether you're representative of the local community, are you getting like good feedback on that, you know, not just. 

00:16:04  Lorienne Whittle 

Numbers through the door, but actually what are people getting throughout? You know, out of visits for example. And it quite often people can say, oh, well, if you're increasing access, then you're doing great stakeholder engagement and it's so, so much more than that. So it's able enabled us to have this kind of an academic approach, but a really pragmatic and practical approach and and step back and say well. 

00:16:24  Lorienne Whittle 

If this is what good looks at looks like, you know how. How can we better what we're doing and that doesn't take away any of the things that we're doing on the ground. We you know, we've got weekly volunteering sessions for example, that are really well attended by the local community. We do community event, but layering on the report. 

00:16:44  Lorienne Whittle 

You know, taking a moment to and it's it's been more than a moment, actually, again, independently outsourced in stakeholder mapping. 

00:16:52  Lorienne Whittle 

To actually look at local census data and look at the diversity of the people we're talking to, which who have come to us organically throughout sort of Commons and and actually going OK, this is fabulous, but actually to maximise the benefit of being to be for local people, we need to use our communication methods to get to a harder to reach groups, for example or. 

00:17:13  Lorienne Whittle 

We need to consider the access that we currently is not necessarily best place for those with access needs. So what can we do in our and our budgets for the long term project to increase that so that we've actually got to what the barriers essentially and and and certainly the diverse. 

00:17:30  Lorienne Whittle 

Three of the groups that we're talking to is one of the things where so that's real tangible, OK, what we're doing is fabulous. But to maximize the impact, step back, be critical and and you know, put some things in place so that we're we're maximizing the benefit essentially. And we've seen this has had loads of benefits as well. 

00:17:50  Lorienne Whittle 

Throughout and the the Beaver consultation is one that's mentioned in the report, and I think that's a real testament actually to to how stakeholder engagement is benefiting us and the way in which we're working, the kind of code developed code designed area and I think the spectrum that's mentioned, spectrum of engagement that's throughout the report is. 

00:18:08  Lorienne Whittle 

The really key to what we're doing to basically moves from a place of inform where others have to go, we'll be telling people this is what we're doing. This is how we're doing it. And to empower at the other end and and placing ourselves along that spectrum and. 

00:18:22  Lorienne Whittle 

Being critical about. 

00:18:24  Lorienne Whittle 

What is appropriate at each level and how we can? 

00:18:26  Lorienne Whittle 

Increase along that spectrum. 

00:18:28  Lorienne Whittle 

Has been really, really helpful. 

00:18:30 Ben Hart 

I think just to to. 

00:18:31 Ben Hart 

Add to add that one of the most powerful things for me, I mean the the the principles have been really, really useful, especially going the principles have been really, really useful in terms of understanding. 

00:18:41 Ben Hart 

Kind of what communities are, and communities aren't 11 kind of single amorphous BLOB. They are multiple different groups of different stakeholders. 

00:18:50 Ben Hart 

That often have very different. 

00:18:51 Ben Hart 

Opinions and different kind of expectations. What you're trying to achieve. 

00:18:55 Ben Hart 

And kind of understand, I think the phrase is understanding and managing the power dynamics is really interesting and also what we found within boosting with our oversights is you often get very vocal, very minority, very vocal people that you either very vocally positive and you really wanna engage with them or they vocally negative and you feel like you should engage with them to sort of try and appease them and and bring. 

00:19:17 Ben Hart 

On board, but actually there's this long sort of bit in the middle of people that aren't necessarily that vocal, but might be, you know, are interested in what you want to do. And you know, people who are, you know, who are working, we've got young families who don't really have the time to engage with you and send emails and and and attend event. So, you know, for me that was a real eye opener in terms of really making sure that we take into account. 

00:19:38 Ben Hart 

On the both voices. 

00:19:39 Ben Hart 

As well and try and reach out to them and try and engage them and try and create methods for them to to to engage with the project and that I think that's created a real kind of solid foundation for us to work on here. 

00:19:50 

Yeah. No, thank. 

00:19:51 Caitlin Hafferty 

You very much. That's great to hear. Kind of more on the the background of the rationale and really strongly linking this to broader initiatives around high integrity, nature markets and also the landscape recovery scheme. And and I was just thinking, is it worth very quickly clarifying what we're talking about when we're talking about landscape recovery? 

00:20:13 Caitlin Hafferty 

Anyone feel free to step in, but I I understand that there's a scheme under Defra and I know this quite well, but I'll let somebody else explain this just just very, very quickly for those listening. 

00:20:25  Lorienne Whittle 

Yeah. So landscape recovery was a result of UK coming out of tap and the the government defer in England looking at what would work in terms of supporting farming and reach friendly farming, especially environmentally sensitive farming and so landscape recovery is is in the name, it's looking at landscape scale. 

00:20:45  Lorienne Whittle 

Feature recovery the minimum for that is 500 hectares and Round 2. So what? What? What do we mean by landscape scale nature recovery? 

00:20:56  Lorienne Whittle 

So it might be groups or farmers for example, so it's not exceeding and it's not exceeding those that have smaller land holdings. And we're looking at because we're looking through nature recovery, restoring whole ecological processes as environmental functions. If you take for example, a river, you might want to in your landscape recovery project. 

00:21:15  Lorienne Whittle 

Growing up, clusters of farmers down a river. 

00:21:18  Lorienne Whittle 

But the ability to take the whole river from source to sea is really, really unlikely, although fabulous and is being piloted in some areas. So you might have a smaller area of rivers with a cluster of farmers who will agree to manage that their land around that in similar ways. But what is important in terms of nature recovery here is we're talking about a land around the river. 

00:21:38  Lorienne Whittle 

As well, so giving. 

00:21:40  Lorienne Whittle 

A500 hectare area means that we can talk about working with hydrological processes in this instance. How how does the way in which we farm the land around the river impact the water quality or the way in which we restore of a work for that for that surrounding landscape as well farmland? Absolutely welding. 

00:22:00  Lorienne Whittle 

And so, so there's a whole rap that we could have a whole another podcast, quite honestly, on about why you would do landscape recovery, but all sorts of things from like edge effects, really important in terms of ecological processes, in terms of. 

00:22:15  Lorienne Whittle 

Resilience, I think is is a keyword here. So to to create resilient nature recovery projects, we need to work at that larger scale to have those ecological functions, and it's very much collaborative. Let's go one of four in that first round, one to be a single round owner which has enabled us to move fast. And luckily for us. 

00:22:35  Lorienne Whittle 

What we were doing here aligned very well with the landscape recovery, but it's also really innovative in that it's bringing together. 

00:22:43  Lorienne Whittle 

Clusters of land owners, be it National Trust, be it single and doing farms, that kind of thing to work together to, to manage a local area. Essentially, it turns out it's quite tricky thing to explain, so adding any adding anyone else's thoughts as well. 

00:23:01 Ben Hart 

Is is that? 

00:23:03 Ben Hart 

Last night, the other funding schemes the the SF in the country institution there is sort of capital and revenue support. 

00:23:09 Ben Hart 

From the government. 

00:23:10 Ben Hart 

Importantly, it's it's to identify private sector income streams, which? 

00:23:15 Ben Hart 

So for us is kind of high integrity arithmatic carbon credits that companies will use to offset their long footprint and and it really unfortunately is part of us in that game which again is a whole other podcast all on itself but essentially. 

00:23:29 Ben Hart 

Developers are required now. 

00:23:30 Ben Hart 

To when they do development, make sure that by the end of it, they've increased the biodiversity on the side by 10%. 

00:23:37 Ben Hart 

And you can't do that when you're building houses on a on a field. So actually there's a mechanism to create habitat banks so they can essentially use use boost to buy credits to make sure that overall the nature increases in by 10% from that particular. 

00:23:52 Ben Hart 

So those are just two examples of some of the private sector income that we are required to bring in as part. 

00:23:57 Ben Hart 

Of the landscape recovery. 

00:24:00 Caitlin Hafferty 

Brilliant. Thank you. UM and. 

00:24:03 Caitlin Hafferty 

Josh oh, Josh. Yes. 

00:24:04 

If I. 

00:24:05 Ben Hart 

Yeah. No, sorry if. 

00:24:06 Josh Davis 

I may. I think you know, we touch a few of the. 

00:24:11 Josh Davis 

Drivers for what is effectively subsidizing sustainability, but I think in practice there's that no one size fits fits all approach and I think that flexibility for innovation is a real. 

00:24:20 Josh Davis 

Strength, you know. 

00:24:22 Josh Davis 

Often consensus definitions. 

00:24:24 Josh Davis 

Remain elusive, but nature recovery encompasses a wide range of practices. You know, I think people. 

00:24:29 Josh Davis 

Or can often try to distill it down to points surrounding rewilding and habitat restoration. And for sure that's a key part. But I think it is also, as mentioned, that regenerative and agroecological farming and really Land Management that's intended to to deliver public goods and and societal benefit. 

00:24:47 Caitlin Hafferty 

Definitely. And having engagement and that participatory governance process is almost like that, Leo, that brings all of these parts. 

00:24:56 Caitlin Hafferty 

Ever. I think often when people hear governance and they think ohh, you know well, we'll think about that later. Governance is boring. It's boring. But it's fundamental to everything. It's relevant to the finance. It's relevant to bringing together farmers. It's relevant to. 

00:25:12 Caitlin Hafferty 

Harnessing biodiversity monitoring in the best ways you know, it brings everything together in a cohesive. 

00:25:17 Caitlin Hafferty 

And and engagement as that process is, is one really crucial part of it and kind of going maybe to Josh first. So thinking about the highlights from this report, the highlights from the best evidence that was reviewed to feed into this one of the kind of things that you most would like to flag. 

00:25:39 Caitlin Hafferty 

In this podcast to those. 

00:25:41 Caitlin Hafferty 

Listening. So for me, for example, listening to all of you guys talking, it's the fact that engagement is a process. It is a continuing ongoing process, building relationships, fostering connections and collaborations at different scales, help deliver those objectives not just as a kind of a one off. 

00:26:02 Caitlin Hafferty 

Activity or something that's added on right at the very end of the process to change people's opinions and and bring people on board or you know it's it's a way to listen and really drive projects with and for. 

00:26:15 

People. 

00:26:15 Caitlin Hafferty 

That Josh from your. 

00:26:16 Caitlin Hafferty 

Perspective kind of one of the key messages that you wanted to get through in that report and and see action in the real world. 

00:26:24 Josh Davis 

So yeah, it's a great question and I think it's one that is inevitably tailored to individual projects and approaches. I think we've spoken a little bit about the 10 recommendations, but also, you know, alongside those, there are key areas of consideration including the importance of understanding, scope and context. 

00:26:45 Josh Davis 

OK. How do we foster this shared understanding of of Community ambition? 

00:26:50 Josh Davis 

I think a lot of this does flow as as as I've mentioned from that understanding of context, what is the history of the landscape? What are the cultural connections? How are you placed to make a difference whilst also respecting what's what's come before, but then also there's the importance of prioritizing stakeholder identification and analysis. 

00:27:10 Josh Davis 

You know the very players that are that are at at larger than the landscape and then the different methods for engagement, you know, so perhaps plug some of the fantastic research that you Caitlin have led on concerning digital engagement and the novel dimensions that that offers. 

00:27:27 Ben Hart 

But I think. 

00:27:28 Josh Davis 

Really, it's it's coming back to how do you ensure that it is a two way process and dialogue instead of a one off exercise or catch all toolkit approach and and then you know a final point on. 

00:27:40 Josh Davis 

That is really. 

00:27:42 Josh Davis 

Something that I can't stress enough is how do you build in processes for feedback and evaluation? How do you ensure that voices are heard? Concerns are noted and that collaborative relationships are built for the long term. 

00:27:56 Caitlin Hafferty 

Yeah, brilliant. And I think it's also really great to hear to me often engagement gets boiled down to things like how many people attended the event. And those are the measures of success. And actually, it's so much more than that. And there can be a tendency within nature recovery projects to opt for things that can maybe be easily measured and that can be. 

00:28:16 Caitlin Hafferty 

Hope, simply due to capacity issues as well, but having a process that fosters actually more tangible direct benefits that very locally situated and place based. So an A great example of that as well. And then you mentioned hard and through welding but the sale. 

00:28:31 Caitlin Hafferty 

Plan to local communities and involvement of communities in community management boards as well, where they actually have a real direct influence on decision making at various different scales. Ben and Marianne in terms of benefits or challenges or other things that you'd like to mention about how engagement. 

00:28:51 Caitlin Hafferty 

Has translated now or how you see things going in the future. Yeah. Be particularly great to hear about any of these kind of specific instances where engagement has worked well or hasn't worked well any on the ground, learning that you can. 

00:29:07 Caitlin Hafferty 

Yeah. 

00:29:08 Ben Hart 

So I think I think to follow. 

00:29:09 Ben Hart 

On both your. 

00:29:10 Ben Hart 

Points, I think. What's? 

00:29:10 Ben Hart 

What's really important and what's come out of this report and what's enabled us to communicate with our senior teams and our boards is that it's important to have the capacity, the capacity means people time and budget to to be able to engage. And I think that's the challenge. 

00:29:26 Ben Hart 

You know most. 

00:29:28 Ben Hart 

Checks are often done by NGO's. They're relatively low budgets, you know it. It's a challenge just to deliver the things. And as you said, OK, and it's actually quite difficult to collect this, this extra level of data, even just to counting out of people who attend your, your events when you're on a single person running. 

00:29:43 Ben Hart 

An event? It's quite. 

00:29:44 Ben Hart 

Difficult. So I think we're gonna recognize that there is that lack of that, that challenge. 

00:29:48 Ben Hart 

Within the kind of sector as a whole. 

00:29:50 Ben Hart 

And and again, whilst we've we've been quite lucky with the landscape recovery budget is is enabled us to do this work, but also as we go on, it's enabled us to request some support that we wouldn't necessarily be able to get on a purely kind of kind of financial driven model. So that we do have we're looking to have an. 

00:30:09 Ben Hart 

Education officer. 

00:30:11 Ben Hart 

Actually join at some point in the next few years that we'll be able to spend a few days a week actually going and engaging with schools and creating tools and and creating activities that suit the curriculum and so on and so forth. So that's been a really interesting sort of challenge to work through and what's. 

00:30:25 Ben Hart 

A couple of a. 

00:30:26 Ben Hart 

Couple of other things. So what that's led to in Natal is the is, you know. 

00:30:31 Ben Hart 

Which in the we're currently in budget season because we have our creating our budgets for next year and we've been very clear that we we have a we have a kind of Community budget line which enables us to put some not human some budget in there for hiring Community halls to engage with people to going out and meeting to events and attending events and. 

00:30:50 Ben Hart 

And and so on and so. 

00:30:51 Stephen Thomas 

So. 

00:30:51 Ben Hart 

I think that's been a really important learning and obviously all of the stuff that's come out in the report and the documentation we are taking across all. 

00:30:56 Ben Hart 

Of our sites, I think a final one. 

00:30:58 Ben Hart 

For me is that. 

00:31:01 Ben Hart 

As you say, it's not a one size fits. 

00:31:03 Ben Hart 

All and one of the things that. 

00:31:04 Ben Hart 

We, we, we. 

00:31:05 Ben Hart 

We did there to get one of the learnings we've had over the last year is we tried to do a steering group for Boothby, which was essentially both our our stakeholder, our kind of our kind. 

00:31:15 Ben Hart 

Of our community. 

00:31:16 Ben Hart 

Our almost like our community of of interest. 

00:31:19 Ben Hart 

Kind of stakeholders and our communities place so essentially all of our NGO contacts and our kind of local land owners and and other activities and our neighbours as well. And what we found is that the kind of the community of of practice, you know, the kind of like the the interest community that wasn't necessarily living next to us had a very strong voice, wanted to understand the model and the income streams and all of that and they were. 

00:31:40 Ben Hart 

More interest in the business model. 

00:31:42 Ben Hart 

And the neighbours are a little bit more. Well, they felt a bit drowned out in that whole conversation and what they want to know is what's happening. 

00:31:48 Ben Hart 

On the site and. 

00:31:48 Ben Hart 

What about access over here and? 

00:31:50 Ben Hart 

This part here and is this. 

00:31:51 Ben Hart 

If this is going. 

00:31:52 Ben Hart 

To get flooded. How does that affect me? So we've actually split that into two separate groups? 

00:31:56 Ben Hart 

Now so we have a kind of kind of semi regular meeting with our neighbours, which is happening tonight and then and and then it's kind of a more kind of efficient during the day with our kind of community of interested parties and stuff. And I think that's that's the key learning. 

00:32:11  Lorienne Whittle 

That we've had on this. Yeah, it might be that other places are are able to successfully bring that. 

00:32:16  Lorienne Whittle 

Around together for for that cross pollination. But and I think the key thing for me is that Josh kind of highlighted it earlier is. 

00:32:23  Lorienne Whittle 

It's a communication and it's two way communication and it's it's not coming into this with this is what will work. We'll do this, we'll tick a box and and we'll walk away and that's a great example of that. We tried to bring everyone together because we thought that might actually add quite a lot of value, but we listened to the feedback and again it's about constantly having that communication having that feedback. 

00:32:44  Lorienne Whittle 

And the feedback was has been said really strongly. You know, we just that's not what we're interested in. You know, we want to be champions of the project, we want to bring you concerns. We want to, you know, help in the decision making but. 

00:32:55  Lorienne Whittle 

Yeah. As Ben said, they were they sort of drowned out. So that was a really important sort of reflection for us and and maybe something that other people can learn from as well. And and I say as well, you know, it's. 

00:33:07  Lorienne Whittle 

The financing is definitely a challenge. We've been very lucky. But thinking about how this report and best practice can be extrapolated across, you know, for other people, sometimes I think nature funding is quite siloed and we have to actually change the system somewhat, you know, to to make sure that the stakeholder engagement is always. 

00:33:27  Lorienne Whittle 

Yeah. 

00:33:27  Lorienne Whittle 

Up there, and if it's not in there then then challenge that and and put it in. But also yeah think about it from a proper point of view and what has been really heartwarming is that we have had so many people sort of corporate interest hosted here at beesby and we talk about stakeholder engagement as something we're proud of as much as we do the monitoring that we've done across the site. 

00:33:48  Lorienne Whittle 

For example, and the interest in it is real, it's tangible and you know, there are various reasons why corporate might be really interested in how you're working with local people, for example, or wider stakeholder. 

00:34:00  Lorienne Whittle 

It might be that they don't want to partner with you if you're doing a a Beaver reintroduction, for example, and you haven't done that engagement because actually that's a risk to them, because if local people turn around and go, oh, you're doing this work, we hate this idea. Then you know, brand, brand reputation, that kind of thing. But as we've talked through, for example, the Bieber consultation, how I feel. 

00:34:20  Lorienne Whittle 

How much stronger and actually the feedback that we created cause again there were there's online feedback there was in person feedback. 

00:34:25  Lorienne Whittle 

There were various. 

00:34:27  Lorienne Whittle 

Village on site online to make it more accessible and we made sure that those feedback forms available at all of those through different methods and some people were feeding, were feeding back before they'd heard our presentations and our talk and enabled us to have that conversation. And and it was when we sort of said, well, do you want to listen to what we're saying and have a conversation about? 

00:34:47  Lorienne Whittle 

Talk to Lizzie, annoyed, and Lloyd, and on it on when we were volunteering last year. Last week we went down and he talked us all through it so. 

00:34:55  Lorienne Whittle 

It's not. It's not. You can do an event and and take the box. It's constant and it's about that capacity. Having people there that can be that communication and but that feedback is is really valuable. So from a corporate point of view, whether it's you know, reputation, risk reduction, whether it's seeing it as part of you know package with carbon and biodiversity and people, whatever the motivation and it might, it might be varied. 

00:35:17  Lorienne Whittle 

And it's it's real that we're we're seeing from the marketplace. So I think it's just really important that we all keep it there front and center so that we're all kind of singing from the same. 

00:35:27 Caitlin Hafferty 

Look, and I think this is such an important point to end on and maybe Josh, I'll just turn to you to to talk to this because in the report I know you have a point around capacity building, confidence building institutionalizing and engagement as part of organisations, you know, learning and and capacity building processes. 

00:35:47 Caitlin Hafferty 

But just to kind of touch on on this point, I think often engagement can be rightly so seen as something that's quite scary and daunting, particularly if there isn't the funding there. There isn't the policy support and the guidance available. There aren't the regulatory inventions there that have been set set by the government interventions, rather not inventions. 

00:36:07 Caitlin Hafferty 

Often it can be seen as you know this this very daunting process, particularly if there's, if there's conflict and and conflict is something that's inevitable. But I think it's just so important to share case studies and guidance and and, you know, lessons learned and it's there, you know the evidence is there social science evidence is there guidance is there. 

00:36:27 Caitlin Hafferty 

And. 

00:36:28 Caitlin Hafferty 

There's learning to be shared between different projects and different organizations working to do nature recovery on different scales, and I think it just shows you know that this doesn't have to be even even if there's only capacity to do a tiny bit of engagement that can grow into something else. But just to end on this point, Josh, I don't know if you want to speak to the importance of kind of. 

00:36:48 Caitlin Hafferty 

Building this capacity and and then maybe we can very briefly talk about what needs to happen to support this. So I know in. 

00:36:56 Caitlin Hafferty 

Scotland Community engagement and benefits are a key part of the nature markets framework. I know that it's also a key part of of kind of different standards as well around high integrity, nature and carbon credits. But what needs to happen to support organizations more but Josh, first to you on organizational. 

00:37:16 Caitlin Hafferty 

Capacity. 

00:37:18 Josh Davis 

Yeah, I think. 

00:37:18 Josh Davis 

It's meeting people where they are and I think you know the point around institutionalizing best practice is ultimately embedding those principles, whether it's those derived from the report, which will ultimately intended to synthesize the current guidance, but. 

00:37:34 Josh Davis 

Build upon, not replace what was out there. It's about getting to a place where. 

00:37:39 Josh Davis 

Organizations feel as though they're able to do what they can within reason, and yes, consider you know, how do we stress the positives of our actions? What's also considering the potential for an intended consequences? How do we build that into our plans so that we're able to to move forward. And I think a lot of that. 

00:37:58 Josh Davis 

Weeks to, you know, the the long term impact of of this report, it's been really pleasing to see how this research is now, you know, publicly available and how fanatical to have embraced and embedded its findings. 

00:38:11 Josh Davis 

Whilst the work was tailored to to Boothby and and to Natal, the framework, its recommendations and indeed most of the kind of key takeaways from it, apply to nature restoration and rewilding initiatives right across the UK. So I think it again returns to that importance of having case studies and. 

00:38:32 Josh Davis 

Positioning ourselves in a way where organizations are then able to apply those in different ways, you know, how do you actively respond to your local context and pass successes to provide a phased approach to improving engagement? 

00:38:46 Caitlin Hafferty 

Amazing and bad and Ryan anything to add? Finally on kind of you know what what people can do now. You know what we really can do and then maybe what needs to happen in the future to really increase their support and increase their support that's there for organizations looking to deliver those multiple benefits for people, for climate. 

00:39:06 Caitlin Hafferty 

Biodiversity through nature recovery projects at different scale. 

00:39:13  Lorienne Whittle 

So yeah, I think, well, I think Josh just said it in terms of the sort of on the ground level, it's identify what you can do and do a do a little well and start off small. And I'd say put in if you can find the capacity to put some effort for the funding streams that's going to be key because ultimately. 

00:39:31  Lorienne Whittle 

This this capacity increase will will need to be funded somehow, so look outside the obvious as well. And there are lots of organisations that. 

00:39:39  Lorienne Whittle 

Are funding more social stuff that again we sort of as in, in, in nature recovery Hat Pops are not reaching out to you. But I think you know we're we're we're looking at building communities and society here and we have to stop funding these as silo things nature one farming one people want we're all working together to actually the funders as well. 

00:39:59  Lorienne Whittle 

You know, call out the funders to look at holistic projects there and and from like, right at the other end of that, just to briefly say that. 

00:40:06  Lorienne Whittle 

Feedback that we've had from from corporate people, that is like it's difficult for someone outside this sector to say what does good look like. You know, how do we know if someone coming in to perhaps support we be wildland or buy some BNG or whatever. 

00:40:22  Lorienne Whittle 

Partner with us. What? What? What is good? You know, for us. 

00:40:27  Lorienne Whittle 

Having this best practice that we can say that we're embedding this, we're working on it. We can look at some of our feedback that that kind of thing. But just generally for nature recovery projects and that that sort of corporate investment relationship, I kind of kite mark, I guess is where I'm coming from and and as as beesby and nasty girl are the only English. 

00:40:47  Lorienne Whittle 

Project at a Scottish level government funded level. Look at what community benefits type mark sort of looks like. So I think we need some kind of verification process so that you know projects can say independently assessed on something. So that you also. 

00:41:05  Lorienne Whittle 

You know, a bit like with anything greenwashing is such an issue within the industry. You know, it's easy enough for people to say, but how do they prove? And I think that probably needs some independent verification. So a gold, a gold standard, basically. And but you guys know much more about that. 

00:41:20  Lorienne Whittle 

Than I do. So yeah, just to just to. 

00:41:23 Ben Hart 

Maybe clarify that but little bit is. 

00:41:26 Ben Hart 

Sort of wide, wider point of view. 

00:41:28 Ben Hart 

You know the words. Boothby is, as I mentioned, is the English partner in in a firm Scottish from the government funded project which are involved in getting as well which is developing this community best practice that it's all kind of sorry. Just gonna repeat what you said there but just kind of. Yeah. But so obviously the kind of learning. 

00:41:48 Ben Hart 

Whilst this particular report, I suppose, plugs to the report, whilst we're talking is it's all available on our website and there's an executive summary to download. 

00:41:56 Ben Hart 

Well, which everyone is very it's all open and downloadable, so we hope people will go and use their, but it's it it. It is very much relevant to our particular situation where we are in England as not to go, but the learning from that is feeding into this wider Scotland funded project that we hope that Matt Matter girl or booby will be the first. 

00:42:18 Ben Hart 

Non Scottish project to get that kind of stamp as it were, and then actually the first project through the Nature Finance Certification Alliance. 

00:42:28 Ben Hart 

The the the loans from that is actually feeding into the British Standards Institute work that the UK Government has asked them to do and that nature market framework. So we've we we're hoping over time. 

00:42:39 Ben Hart 

All of the stuff we've been talking about in terms of simplifying and codifying and standardising this work will become a reality and obviously all the work we're all doing together is feeding into the wider body of lessons to that. So I think that that's what we really need to see and it is difficult and it is, as Josh says, it needs to be adjusted and and and appropriate. 

00:42:59 Ben Hart 

To the to the place in the project you're working on and, but I think if we if we can do it. 

00:43:03 Ben Hart 

All together we can we can make something really special. 

00:43:07 Caitlin Hafferty 

Amazing ending honour, a message of of hope there and loads of potential for other projects to pick up lessons from the report and to, you know, mash it up and make it work for their projects. I think way back I designed some guidance a couple of years ago that's also out there and we'll put all the links to resources. 

00:43:28 Caitlin Hafferty 

With this podcast, but I think the key thing is, you know, make this work for your project and and look at what's out there and flexibly align it to. 

00:43:36 Caitlin Hafferty 

Projects, but any any final notes before we sign off. 

00:43:41 Ben Hart 

Before you go kaylin, just a a massive thank you to you and Josh for delivering this. It was it was a big piece of work and you guys did it fantastically and we were really excited about the relationship and future collaborations we go on. 

00:44:03 Stephen Thomas 

You've been listening to the Nature Recovery Podcast with me. Steven Thomas. Please don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your. 

00:44:09 Stephen Thomas 

Podcasts and if you. 

00:44:10 Stephen Thomas 

Can please consider leaving us a review as it will really help other people to find us. 

00:44:15 Stephen Thomas 

Also, why not consider sharing this episode with someone you know you never know? You might know I'm interested in the wonderful field of nature recovery. 

00:44:24 Stephen Thomas 

If you want to find out more about the activities of the Leader, Home 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.naturerecovery.ox.ac.uk. 

00:44:38 Stephen Thomas 

Thanks so much for listening.