| Short abstract: |
Natural and social scientists have joined forces with locals and policy makers to develop a framework that can be applied throughout the country’s uplands to find new ways for people to detect change and harness it for their advantage. Much of Britain's drinking water comes from uplands, they contain many plants and animals found nowhere else in the country, and are important for tourism, sheep farming, game and fishing. But inappropriate land management has been blamed for reduced biodiversity, and in-creased water colour, downstream flooding, sediment yields and carbon loss. By building on local knowledge and experience, this project is combining new ideas from local people with cutting edge natural and social science. The result will be a choice of solutions to future challenges that could never have been developed by either group alone. The project starts by identifying the current needs and aspirations of those who work, live and play in three upland areas and explore their concerns for the future. The driv-ing forces behind these concerns will be modelled with computers to build up detailed scenarios of possible future social, economic and environmental conditions. The project will then seek innovative ideas from local people, policy makers and researchers about how to people could adapt to these scenarios. The suggestions will be fed into the models to explore what effect they might have on future society, economy and environment. This will help the team identify the most appropriate ways for people to adapt in each upland area. The project will also identify indicators that can people can use to monitor how successfully they are adapting and improve their practice. Communication and understanding between different stakeholders and researchers will be fostered through a series of joint field trips and workshops. |
