Austen, GE, Dallimer, M orcid.org/0000-0001-8120-3309, Irvine, KN et al. (3 more authors) (2022) The diversity of people's relationships with biodiversity should inform forest restoration and creation. Conservation Letters. ISSN 1755-263X
Abstract
Forest restoration/creation is a policy focus worldwide, with initiatives pledging to plant billions of trees. While there is an emphasis on providing “the right tree in the right place,” we need to understand for whom the trees are right. Such social dimensions are frequently overlooked, despite being critical to successful forest restoration/creation. We used Q-methodology to examine what forest biodiversity attributes (e.g., functions, behaviors, colors, smells) people (N = 194) relate to and how in Britain. We found that shared public perspectives on biodiversity attributes are multifaceted, influenced by personal experience and vary across taxa. This heterogeneity highlights the importance of gaining a richer understanding of human–nature relationships, as restoration/creation initiatives need to deliver biodiverse forests to accommodate the plurality of preferences brought to bear upon them. Based on our findings, emphasizing biodiversity in forest restoration/creation should contribute to greater use of, comfort in, and meaningful engagement with, forests in the future by a wider set of publics.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | climate change mitigation, ecosystem services, forest creation, forest restoration, humanwellbeing, human–nature interactions, Q-methodology, reforestation, tree planting, woodland |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EU - European Union 726104 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 09 Dec 2022 12:28 |
Last Modified: | 09 Dec 2022 12:28 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/conl.12930 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:193871 |