STAND Team went to North Pennies and Yorkshire Dales for their first workshop

Our first workshop took place on the 25th of July 2023 at the North Pennines and Yorkshire Dales. This workshop was delivered by our STAND project team members who welcomed and introduced the project to twenty local stakeholders, farmers, estate managers, NGOs, industry, public bodies and local authorities. The intention of the first workshop was to gain an understanding of local stakeholders’ interests, preferences and their ambitions for different land uses and treescape approaches. Welcome: Introducing everyone to the workshop.

Throughout the workshop day stakeholders participated in activities which enabled us to learn about their vision, their values and preferences for treescapes interventions that will be used to create future scenarios.
First, in break-out groups, the stakeholders reflected on the current day landscape uses, using a participatory mapping exercise to prompt discussion on ‘What ecosystem services does the landscape currently provide?’ Each break-out group participating in the activities.

The second activity looked towards the future and enabled the stakeholders to discuss what land use changes and treescape interventions they would like to see for their land and environment, asking them the question ‘What do we want the landscape to provide in 2050’.

The final activity brought together all elements discussed so far, their ecosystem service values, what is most important to them, and rules for where trees can or can’t be planted, to describe their own 2050 scenario. Each group’s preferences have been noted in order for us to model their future 2050 scenario. To conclude the day, each break out group presented their scenario and shared what they have learnt from the workshop.
Break-out group discussing their 2050 scenario.

This day was a fantastic opportunity for the STAND team to get together, meet with local stakeholders and for participants to network across different sectors. Participants engaged with all the activities well, which prompted healthy and detailed discussions regarding their future visions of land use changes.

Feedback from participants involved:

‘A good atmosphere and brilliant to talk to other people from different perspectives’

‘Very useful to focus on what people with knowledge of this landscape think about the future of the uplands’ Our STAND Project Team Members.

Creating and modeling the stakeholder scenarios is the team’s next step with the STAND project. By creating these models, we will be able to predict the consequences of each scenario on different ecosystem service measures. What effect will each scenario have on food or timber production? How is each scenario going to affect biodiversity and carbon sequestration in this environment?

The STAND project team members will be running a second workshop next year with the same group of stakeholders to give feedback regarding these models. This allows for discussion about trade-offs and synergies between different objectives.

Our next workshop, in September 2023, will be taking place in Wales with local stakeholders from the Eleyndd landscape.

Teyana Muir