Preparing for the future: anticipating, monitoring and adapting to environmental change

Preparing for the future

How can we anticipate, monitor and adapt to environmental change?

Mark ReedUnvegetated dunes, Bokspits, southwest Botswana

“Where do we come from?

What are we?

Where are we going?”

?Fortune Telling

Dreaming

Scenarios

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it” Alan Kay“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today” Malcolm X

Farmer interview, Werda, southeast Botswana

Farmer interview, Boteti District, BotswanaPeak District National Park

Plan

How can draw on both local and scientific knowledge to:

1. More effectively anticipate what the future might hold?

2. Empower stakeholders to monitor changes as they unfold?

3. Adapt rapidly and effectively to future change?

Grouse model, Peak District National Park

1. Anticipating Change

Stakeholder workshop, Nidderdale AONB, Yorkshire DalesSite Visit, Peak District National Park

www.see.leeds.ac.uk/sustainableuplands

ustainable UplandsLearning to manage future change

1. Better understand stakeholders priorities and model social relationships through stakeholder analysis and social network analysis, and select working group



2. Understand current/future challenges/opportunities: interviews & site visits with stakeholders/researchers



Managedburns overless areaDefra Burning

Code Review

10% leftunburned

Blanket BogBurning Ban

ShorterBurningSeason

Lessshooting days

Futureshooting ban

Increasedanimal rights

activism

Lowereconomic

returns fromgrouse

Lessmoorland

managed forgrouse

Smaller rurallabour pool

Demographicchange

Culturalchange

Conservationpriorities

More longheather

More scrub

Morebroadleaf

forest

Moreaccidental

fires

ClimateChange to

warmer/drier

Less erosion Less watercolour

More erosionMore water

colourLess

vegetationcover

Afforestationschemes

Coniferreplacement

schemes

Burningtechnologyadvances

CAP reform

Single farmpayment

EnvironmentalStewardship

Scheme

Hill sheepless

profitable

Less gamekeepering

Rural-urbanmigration

Ageing ruralpopulation

Less interestin rural

livelihoods

Less intensivegrazing

Agriculturalmarkets

Diversification?

Ecologicalrestoration

Recreationalpriorities

More controlof burning

Less bareground

Less 'flashy'hydrology

Badly timed burns,possibly under

burning

Reduction insheep numbers

Increasedrecreational use -walking, climbing,

tourism

Reluctance toclose moors

under fire risk

3. Conceptual system model from interviews, site visits & literature; trace drivers to create scenarios



4. Refine and prioritise scenarios for investigation



5. Model possible futures: details, feedbacks, scenarios interactions, ES trade-offs for future planning



6. Communicate model outputs through films that depict different likely futures




7. Find innovative ways that people can respond and discuss ideas from literature (How would you respond if this happened?)

• Model innovative ideas: how likely to work? • Use results to revise/refine ideas to ensure they work



ES synergies & trade-offs• Carbon management has a number of synergies: water

quality, fire risk, protecting blanket bog species, limiting scrub encroachment and perhaps generating income

• All scenarios appear likely to compromise upland biodiversity

• Already a source of conflict...

Golden Plover



Interview sub-sample of Moors

for the Future partnership who

communicate on a monthly or more frequent basis

Hill Farming

ConservationSporting Interests

Water Companies

Recreation



Hill Farming


Water Companies

Recreation

“I think perhaps the moors are over-burnt and not respected from the point that they are driven too hard and pushed too hard for the purpose of the grouse…they are looking for more and more and more…But it becomes like any mono-culture then – if you’re driven so single-mindedly by one thing, that tends to knacker nature – that’s the problem.”

“At the moment there is a conflict between us [Natural England] and the people who manage fires, that we need to sort out. It’s a big thing - its probably the most important thing.”



Hill Farming

Sporting Interests

Water Companies

Recreation

Conservation

“The heather moorlands… are there because of grouse shooting. Full-stop… Whether we like it or not, grouse shooting is the raison d’être.”

“[They] want to paint by numbers. The problem is [they] can’t tell you what the numbers are. [They] can’t tell you what is going to happen.”

“I’ve spent thirty years managing land and I’ve seen all these things come and go. So when you tell me as a very sincere young man with a great deal of credentials, that your prescription is right, you just listen to me: the guy who gave me 100% grant aid…to plough heather moorland also believed he was right because moorland was “waste”.”



• The majority perceive considerable overlap between their views on upland management and views of those they know from other groups

• Need to foster greater trust between some groups to avoid exacerbating conflict under future scenarios

Hill Farming


Water Companies

Recreation

“A mix with people doing different things is our best hope of creating some semblance of balance.”

Agent



Hydrological Monitoring, Guadalentin, Spain

2. Monitoring Change

Plant ecology sampling, southwest Botswana



Fenced private rangeland next to communal area, southwest BotswanaExamining a thorn bush, Bray farm, southeast Botswana

Indicators

Oral history, southeast Botswana



Yr 1Yr 10Yr 201 10 20 yrs

Thorny bush encroachment in the Kalahari, Botswana



Identifying indicators, southwest BotswanaEcological evaluation of indicatorsEvaluating indicators with communities using Multi-Criteria Evaluation



Guadalentin, Spain

3. Adapting to change3. Adapting to Change

Focus group with Kalahari innovators



Lettuce farmer, Guadalentin, Spain

Spain

Tunisia

Turkey Botswana

Portugal China





Impacts

• Manuals for GoB implementation of NAP• Knowledge management system for UNCCD



Impacts

"The Sustainable Uplands project is a great example of research that is listening to and valuing those people that manage and live in upland environments whilst at the same time informing UK government and the general public. It is a challenging time for the uplands and the kind of research being carried out by this project is essential when trying to find out how we can sustain rural communities under future pressures”

Stuart Burgess CBE, Chairman of the Commission for Rural Communities and Rural Advocate



Business• Informing Yorkshire Water, Premier Waste PLC and

United Utilities about how they can reduce water treatment costs by reducing water colour inputs from upland management



Policy• Findings included in NEA (DEFRA/UNEP)• IUCN commissioned review on peatland policy options• “Future of the Uplands” for Foresight Land Use Futures• Commissioned input to CRC Inquiry into the Future of

England’s Upland Communities• Case study: Scottish Government Rural Land Use Study• Invited to present to Scottish Government Pack Inquiry &

Land Use Strategy teams• Value for Money report for Public Accounts Committee• “Making Space for Water” cross-Govt. programme • Natural England Ecosystem Service Pilot



Questions• What makes stakeholder participation deliver

positive environmental outcomes in different contexts? How might the attitudes and behaviours that lead to positive environmental outcomes diffuse through society via social learning?

British Academy and EU-funded ECOPAG



Questions• What are the ingredients of successful

knowledge exchange? How does knowledge from science and other sources get into policy and practice and vice versa, and how is it transformed or blocked along the way?

RELU and EU-funded Ecocycles projects



Questions• Does people’s engagement with the

environment enhance their personal well-being? If so how, and does this lead them to engage in more sustainable behaviours?

RCUK-funded Be-WEL project



Contacthttp://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~lecmsr/

Follow me on:

www.twitter.com/lecmsr

Two films about the future of the uplands: http://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~lecmsr/sustainableuplands/media.htm

Email: [email protected]

Call or text on: 0753 8082343



Contacthttp://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~lecmsr/

Follow me on:

www.twitter.com/lecmsr

Two films about the future of the uplands: http://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~lecmsr/sustainableuplands/media.htm

Email: [email protected]

Call or text on: 0753 8082343

Travel

Preparing for the future: anticipating, monitoring and adapting to environmental change