Society Research Theme
Encompassing the governance and socio-cultural dimensions of nature recovery.
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
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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.
Team
Theme outputs
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- Society
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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 (2025). Equity in unilateral value chain policies: A monitoring framework for the EUDR and beyond. Forest Policy and Economics.
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 of unilateralism, whereby states impose environmental rules on imported commodities. Debates have ensued over the political legitimacy of unilateralism, the unequal distribution of its socio-economic impacts, and the need to safeguard local producers and communities. This paper informs these debates by developing and applying a framework for monitoring equity across scales and phases of the policy process. The framework is applied to the 2023 EU Deforestation-free Regulation (EUDR), which aims to stop EU imports of commodities linked to deforestation. We find that EUDR policy references equity as a desired outcome, but excludes affected actors from the design process. Drawing on the case of cocoa in Ghana, we identify diverse potential impacts on smallholder farmers and economies. Opportunities for the EUDR to improve equity include embedding non-EU stakeholders in international decision-making processes, enhanced and equitable partnerships with producing countries and major investments in farmer support. The paper concludes by providing an equity checklist and agenda for monitoring progress, adaptable to a wide range of unilateral and trade-based policies.
Eric Mensah Kumeh, Mark Hirons (2025). Understanding actors’ power through conflict dynamics: Insights from small-scale mining on cocoa farms. Forest Policy and Economics.
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining at the forest-farm nexus remains a contentious issue due to the diversity of actors and competing interests surrounding it. Using the actor-centered power (ACP) approach, it has been theorized that actors leverage power resources, combining coercion, (dis-)incentives, and dominant information, to influence less powerful actors to act against their preferred interests.
Equity in Urban Green Space Access and Governance: an interdisciplinary Oxford case study.
Martha Crockatt and Mattia Troiano have been exploring equity of urban greenspace in Oxford communities. Here they present findings from their interdisciplinary research, which has used a wide range of methods to explore the implications of adopting a recognitional equity approach when thinking about access to greenspace and participation in its governance, culminating in a community workshop and academic paper (in prep).
News & events
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How do perceptions of risk shape nature finance?
12 March 2025Caitlin Hafferty, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Centre, has recently been awarded an Oxford Policy Engagement Network (OPEN) Fellowship to conduct a project on understanding the impact of risk and uncertainty on high-integrity nature markets in the UK. The UK is committed to meeting net zero and nature recovery targets through the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), […]
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Rewilding the City… A new discourse on urban rewilding.
11 February 2025Rewilding has become established as a new mode of nature conservation. There is a growing body of science, ambitious landscape-scale plans, and increasing political will. But until recently, cities and the urban were neglected; the idea of urban rewilding seen as oxymoronic. Of late, however, there has been a shift, with growing enthusiasm amongst metropolitan […]
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OPEN Fellowship awarded to investigate how risk impacts high-integrity carbon and nature markets
15 January 2025Caitlin Hafferty, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Environmental Change Institute, has recently been awarded an Oxford Policy Engagement Network (OPEN) Fellowship to explore the role of risk and uncertainty in shaping high-integrity nature markets in the UK. The project – conducted in partnership with the Green Finance and Capability Team at the Department for Energy Security […]
news Award