Society

Research Theme

Encompassing the governance and socio-cultural dimensions of nature recovery.

Ghana parade

About

This theme examines how ‘nature recovery’ is defined and governed at multiple scales across diverse landscapes, how its costs and benefits are distributed, and what lessons this holds for promoting equitable and restorative human-nature relations. The initial focus will be on case study landscapes in the UK and Ghana supporting a range of land uses, including conservation, recreation and the production of food and fibre for commercial and subsistence use.

One research strand examines the political ecology of nature recovery at multiple scales, with a strong emphasis on the design and implementation of participatory approaches to co-creating and managing nature recovery. This includes analysis of existing and proposed public and private policies, laws and standards for public participation in nature restoration and land use decision-making and how they intersect with grassroots and business recovery initiatives and local landowner engagements.

As part of this work, we will explore complementarities and tensions between scientific knowledge, including that generated by this project, and local knowledge of nature and place, and how different knowledge claims are used, accepted or rejected, and by whom. We will also examine how nature recovery efforts shape equality of access to land, nature and finance across diverse social groups.

Our second strand examines different cultural understandings of nature and how these configure the possibilities for nature recovery. We anticipate that successful strategies for nature recovery will require broad cultural support from landowners, farmers, citizens, and their representatives. But we know that these groups often disagree about what nature is and how it ought to be managed. We will investigate how culture and group identity shape different patterns of behaviour that impact nature recovery. We are especially interested what digital media tell us about popular understandings of nature and in the potential of digital technologies to enable new forms of environmental citizenship.

Projects

Healthy Ecosystem Restoration in Oxfordshire

Developing the local Oxfordshire landscape as a case-study, nature-recovery laboratory and community of practice.

Photo:Georg Eiermann, Unsplash

Assessing urban ecosystem composition and function to understand pathways towards equitable, Nature-smart cities

Through considering the ecosystem composition and functioning of Greater London, I hope to provide not only a comprehensive analysis of nature of in cities as it currently stands, but I also hope to provide routes to improving nature in these areas based on this.

People walking over zebra crossing ryoji-iwata-people-black-whi

Participatory governance of nature recovery and Nature-based Solutions.

Co-designing knowledge, evidence, and practitioner guidance for engagement processes that enhance the delivery of benefits for people, nature, and climate

tamas-tuzes-katai-rEn-AdBr3Ig-unsplash

Risky Nature Recovery

How can the governance of nature recovery embrace uncertainty to support transformative change?

The landscape aesthetics of nature recovery

How do perceptions of what the landscape ought to look like enable and constrain nature recovery in the UK?

Youth-led Nature Recovery

What are the barriers and opportunities for young peoples' ability to lead and act on nature recovery in the UK, and how can their participation be supported?

Research at the interface of indigenous and Western science

Empirically applying an intercultural interdisciplinary mapping methodology “Non Oñamboan Joi” for assessing nature recovery potential in the Amazon.

Community values in accessible urban green spaces and planning: An Oxford case.

Investigating community values in accessible urban green spaces and assessing the equity of urban green governance across different socio-economic areas of Oxford.

Photo:Georg Eiermann, Unsplash

Rewilding The City

Investigating urban rewilding initiatives, from top-down governance schemes to local community-based practices.

Understanding nature recovery paths and ecosystem functioning through forests health assessments

Quantifying the health of forests ecosystems by means of earth observation can aid in understanding nature recovery paths and ecosystem functioning

Aerial water splash

Innovative methods to connect and communicate between disciplines

Establishing evidence-based methods to bridge scientific fields for nature recovery.

Equitable distribution of nature-rich accessible green space: An Oxfordshire case study

Investigating the distribution of freely accessible green space in Oxfordshire in relation to socio-economic status to inform local green space planning.

Image by freepik

Oxford Policy Engagement Fellowship: Developing a green infrastructure equity tool

A collaborative project with Plymouth City Council and the Woodland Trust to develop and trial a tool to identify neighbourhoods that are socioeconomically deprived and lack access to green space.

Pioneering Nature-Positive Pathways: Organisational Approaches for delivering Nature Recovery

Understanding the methods and actions required by large organisations to deliver effective and equitable biodiversity outcomes in line with achieving global nature recovery goals.

A canopy bridge in Ghana

Social ecological mapping for nature recovery

Developing social ecological maps for land use planning, investment and inclusive decision-making.

The Good Natured Conservation Optimism Short Film Festival

An inspiring and empowering collection of short films showing stories from across the natural world

Some cocoa pods

Institutional innovations for nature recovery

A power-sensitive and multi-level analysis of institutions involved in pursuing landscape scale nature recovery and their intersection with questions of equity and justice in the UK and Ghana.

Highlands landscape

Bunloit and Beldorney

Exploring the ecological and social dimensions of nature recovery.

Balmoral forests from the air

The knowledge politics of measuring forests

What are the social, ecological and economic effects of measuring and valuing forests in Scottish nature recovery?

Database of Scottish nature recovery projects

We will build a database of all nature recovery projects and organisations in Scotland.

Related Outputs

Publications LCNR supported Society

Equity in unilateral value chain policies: A monitoring framework for the EUDR and beyond

Constance L. McDermott, Thomas Addoah, Tawiah Agyarko-Kwarteng, Rebecca Asare, Alex Assanvo, Mairon Bastos Lima, Helen Bellfield, Amanda Berlan, Sophia Carodenuto, Toby Gardner, Rachael D. Garrett, Caitlin Hafferty, Mark Hirons, Verina Ingram, Eric Mensah Kumeh, Joss Lyons-White, John Mason, Patrick Meyfroidt, Jasper Montana, Gustavo L.T. de Oliveira, Sabaheta Ramcilovik-Suominen, Metodi Sotirov, William Thompson, Georg Winkel

Forest Policy and Economics (2025)

Unilateral value chain policies have recently emerged as a key strategy of international land use governance. They’re part of a broader trend towards trade-based environmental policies, from corporate due diligence to sustainability certification and trade moratoria, that has been critiqued for reinforcing inequities in global trade. Such critique has been heightened by the current rise […]

Publications LCNR associated Society

Transforming land use governance: Global targets without equity miss the mark

McDermott, Constance L., Jasper Montana, Aoife Bennett, Carolina Gueiros, Rachel Hamilton, Mark Hirons, Victoria A. Maguire-Rajpaul, Emilie Parry, and Laura Picot

Environmental Policy and Governance (2022)

Publications LCNR supported Scale and Technology Society Remote Sensing

Contrasting carbon cycle along tropical forest aridity gradients in West Africa and Amazonia

Huanyuan Zhang-Zheng, Stephen Adu-Bredu, Akwasi Duah-Gyamfi, Sam Moore, Shalom D. Addo-Danso, Lucy Amissah, Riccardo Valentini, Gloria Djagbletey, Kelvin Anim-Adjei, John Quansah, Bernice Sarpong, Kennedy Owusu-Afriyie, Agne Gvozdevaite, Minxue Tang, Maria C. Ruiz-Jaen, Forzia Ibrahim, Cécile A. J. Girardin, Sami Rifai, Cecilia A. L. Dahlsjö, Terhi Riutta, Xiongjie Deng, Yuheng Sun, Iain Colin Prentice, Imma Oliveras Menor & Yadvinder Malhi

Nature Communications (2024)

Here we present a detailed field assessment of the carbon budget of multiple forest sites in Africa, by monitoring 14 one-hectare plots along an aridity gradient in Ghana, West Africa. When compared with an equivalent aridity gradient in Amazonia, the studied West African forests generally had higher productivity and lower carbon use efficiency (CUE). The […]