Noemi Duroux, Lotti Jones, Caitlin Hafferty, and Jonathon Turnbull reflect on the 2024 Digital Dimensions of Nature Recovery conference, which created a vibrant, interdisciplinary space for knowledge sharing and debate across science, policy, and practice.
The Digital Dimensions of Nature Recovery conference, held at the Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub at Jesus College, Oxford, explored the intersection of digital technologies and nature recovery. Supported by the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery alongside the Agile Initiative, Tech Life Lab, the University of Nottingham, and the European Research Council’s BoS project, the conference welcomed an interdisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners conducting nature recovery work at the interface of theory and practice. The conference was co-organised by a team of early career researchers at the Digital Ecologies research group, led by LCNR researchers Dr Jonathon Turnbull and Dr Caitlin Hafferty.
Seven panels—spanning agriculture, monitoring, visualisation, remediation, urban nature, equity and justice, and financing—brought together diverse voices including farmers, engineers, biologists, economists, geographers, and artists. A key theme across these panels involved understanding the potential of digital technologies for repairing and restoring natural systems as existing within a complicated web of power relations.
As such, the tension between utopian and dystopian visions of technology were central to many discussions. Are digital technologies opening up, or closing down, possibilities for nature recovery? Such questions catalysed vibrant interdisciplinary dialogue around different (often contrasting and conflicting) interrogations of how digital tools, and processes of digitalisation, change and contribute to broader nature recovery efforts.

While digital tools were understood to inaugurate diverse relationships between different groups of people, and between people and nature—some positive, some negative—participants agreed that it is the work of practitioners, policy makers, researchers, and corporations to develop the appropriate political mechanisms to facilitate the fair and sustainable use of digital technologies for delivering nature recovery at scale.
The Digital Dimensions of Nature Recovery conference created important space for moving beyond polarising debates regarding ‘technical fixes’, where technology is either positioned as the ultimate solution or a barrier to nature recovery. During the event, attendees commented on the value of having this conference space to encounter radically different understandings and approaches to the digitisation of nature, challenging disciplinary and institutionalised assumptions, and provoking difficult questions at the interface between academic research and real-world applications.
A longer reflective version of this blog post can be found here. For questions about the event, future plans, and how to get involved, please get in touch with Caitlin and Jonathon.