Open forum, Charles Darwin House, London. 16 February 2011
A meeting supported by Sciencewise ERC brought together 35 people with experience of initiating, running and evaluating public dialogue on land use and the natural environment.
Objective
The Open Forum aimed at
- bringing together learning from relevant project experience,
- identifying remaining challenges and opportunities, and
- determining where next for involving citizens and communities with regard to enabling citizen choices about land use and the natural environment.
Outcomes
Some of the main challenges and opportunities identified are as follows:
- Dialogue about strategic issues, not just local and short term issues, will be crucial for the protection of ecosystem services.
- Topical environmental issues such as flood protection can form a useful starting point for public dialogue because they increase awareness of ecosystem services and natural capital.
- Make full use of existing social capital when developing dialogue processes to help engage local people.
- Beneficial outcomes from participation in public dialogue need to be communicated, as citizens need to see the benefits of getting involved in local land use planning issues to encourage further participation.
- Novel communication technologies could be used to initiate public dialogue. For example, social media can successfully engage young people in land use issues.
Event documentation
Policy briefing: Enabling citizen choices about land use and the natural environment (934KB pdf)
Meeting report: Enabling citizen choices about land use and the natural environment (267 KB pdf)
Follow-on events
On 15th March 2011, NCI held a seminar on enabling citizen choices about land use and the natural environment, hosted by Scottish Government. This seminar was designed for staff in Scottish Government and its key delivery agencies and research partners.
Summary report (85 KB pdf)
On 17th March 2011, NCI held a seminar for Whitehall environment policy leads, analysts and Defra delivery network representatives entitled:
‘Participation and engagement in ecosystem service delivery at the local level’.
This included a report on key messages arising out of the Open Forum on 16th February.
Summary report (66 KB pdf)
Presentations
- Participatory and deliberative techniques for an ecosystem approach (1.1 MB pdf) Robert Fish, University of Exeter
- Towards no net loss and beyond – Summary of Workshops (391 KB pdf) Bruce Howard, Natural Capital Initiative
- How do we decide if, and how, to plan for future ecosystem resilience? (390 KB pdf) Steve Evision, Resources for Change
- Valuing Ecosystems Services in the East of England (VEsSiEE): Lee Valley Regional Park Pilot (336 KB) Steve Smith, Scott Wilson URS
For more information contact Bruce Howard.