Aim:

Bringing local voices and expert perspectives together to shape woodland creation strategies

A lone tree with blue sky behind

Project Description

Synthesising the findings from TreE_PlaNat, Branching Out, Connected Treescapes and AFFOR3ST, and working with the Forth Climate Forest, the team engaged local communities through participatory workshops.

Storytelling sessions captured personal stories with history, family, and home themes. At the same time, mapping-based discussions yielded large amounts of detailed local knowledge, expectations, and desires related to woodland creation. This work led to co-produced recommendations for woodland expansion and ecosystem service provision.

What we discovered...

  • An ArcGIS Storymap was co-produced to integrate personal stories and community knowledge, providing a visual and accessible resource for policymakers and practitioners to gain a deeper understanding of community needs.
  • In storytelling workshops, participants tended to focus on the association of trees with history, deep time and feelings of connection to landscapes, home and safety. In participatory mapping workshops, they focused on health, wellbeing, biodiversity and aesthetics. The two combined found that people expressed emotional and practical connections to treescapes.
  • We mapped these outcomes onto local maps of treescapes and shared insights with the Forth Climate Forest for integration into woodland planning.

 

Project Lead(s)

Dr Sarah Greenwood and Dr Sandra Engstrom, University of Stirling