Welcome to the (belated) March issue of the STAND newsletter. We’re delighted to be able to introduce to two new members of staff to the project team.

Melissa

I’m a Conservation Scientist at RSPB’s Centre for Conservation Science. My role in the STAND project is to lead on the national and landscape scenario modelling, and the consequences of which on greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, food production and others. My background is in climate change ecology, and I completed a PhD at the University of York (with Natural England and NatureScot) on the impacts of climate change on an upland butterfly, the Mountain Ringlet. I’m very interested in the consequences of climate and land-use change in the uplands, and the importance of nature-based solutions in addressing the climate crises.

Alix

I’m a Senior Social Science Research Assistant working for RSPB’s Centre for Conservation Science. My background covers both social and ecological experience, including working in the UK farming sector to support nature friendly farming action and landscape connectivity by fostering bottom-up collaboration through a farm cluster model. I am particularly interested in understanding opportunities for collaboration from a social perspective, both in the UK and international transboundary settings. I will be working on the STAND project supporting social science research to understand the wishes and interests of local stakeholders for treescape expansion and explore actions to deliver future landscape-scale changes.

Other updates

The team is busy preparing for our first participatory workshop, to be held in July in the North Pennines (details to follow!). We are in the process of finalising the boundaries of our two case study landscapes, and identifying key stakeholders to participate in our workshop. We have also made a start on scenario modelling, both at the national scale, as well as some ‘straw doll’ landscape-scale scenarios. We’re excited to share results when we can.

Tom Finch