Climate change and biodiversity loss are among the most pressing global challenges of our time, threatening ecosystems, species survival, and human well-being. While these issues are global in scale, the most promising solutions are deeply place-based -- specific to place, culture, and community.
This project explored three such place-based practices and their biocultural narratives, meaning, implementation, and policy treatment. The goal was to understand how these practices are interpreted by different stakeholders and how such interpretations—framed as narratives of place—either enable or constrain their adoption within policy. In brief the project examined in:
• Wales (UK), nature recovery (government driven) and rewilding (popular driven) approaches, both aiming to restore ecosystem functions and biodiversity.
• Yuin Country (Australia), cultural-burning, an Aboriginal practice using ‘cool fire’ to care for Country, maintaining healthy landscapes while strengthening kinship ties, which differs vastly from the government prescribed burning and hazard reduction burning approaches.
• Bhutan, Ladam/Ridam, a spiritual and social restriction practice, designating specific times of year when people refrain from entering forests or mountain areas, allowing for crop management and nature regeneration.
The research was conducted through collaboration with local researchers, community members, and practitioners. A decolonising methodology ensures that knowledge is co-created in ways that honours the historical, cultural, and political contexts of each place. Rather than comparing case studies directly, the project sought to understand how diverse cultural worldviews about land or place shape the narratives used to justify or contest particular land practices.
A key conclusion is that these narratives of place significantly influence environmental policy and practice. If land management policies are to be both effective and culturally appropriate, they must recognise and accommodate the multiple, sometimes competing, ways in which people relate to land and their place. This research offers insights for policymakers seeking to address climate and biodiversity challenges in a way that respects and integrates diverse cultural understandings of place.
