Public engagement on landscape and ecosystem futures: East of England
Sciencewise-ERC funded project 2011
Background
As part of a larger project on landscape and ecosystem futures, this project focuses specifically on the East of England, and is led by Sustainability East and Defra, amongst others.
Aims and Objectives
- Help build the evidence base on natural environment values and environmental limits.
- Develop transferable tools that decision makers and strategy developers can use, eliminating the need for consultants.
- Assist with embedding the ecosystem assessment (EsA) across local and regional level and Whitehall.
- Develop the demonstrators that decision makers have requested and assist in raising awareness and adoption of the EsA.
Update
- Workshops on ecosystem services in the Lee Valley complete
- Four workshops on agricultural issues complete
Find Out More
- Landscapes and ecosytemsNatural England
- East of EnglandNatural England
- Land Use FuturesBIS Foresight
- Natural Capital Initiative
- Participatory Ecosystems
- Landscapes of the FutureSciencewise-ERC @ the British Science Festival
- Enabling citizen choices about land use and the natural environmentNatural Capital Initiative open forum
- National Ecosystem Assessment
- Putting a price on natureBBC News
Key Impacts
- The pilots provided lessons for incorporating participatory approaches to ecosystem valuations, and how these approaches might be developed in future.
- Those who were engaged in the dialogue processes felt they were positive and interesting, and enabled meaningful conversations about issues that are important for local communities.
- The concept of ecosystem services worked well as a neutral entry point to enable communities to have meaningful conversations about landscape and land use planning. It also enabled open discussion of potentially contentious subjects such as wind energy projects with less immediate polarisation of views.