Integration Research Theme
Developing a novel Analysis and Decision Platform to integrate nature recovery into land-use and infrastructure planning, and exploring scenarios that can deliver local, national and international commitments to nature, climate change and sustainable development.
About
The emerging proliferation of nature recovery actions need to be coordinated, and the vast amounts of data need to be analysed, in a way that satisfies the wide range of aspirations and values that people and organisations have for nature recovery. We also need to support the delivery of local, national and international ambitions and commitments to nature, health, human rights, food production and climate change mitigation. These commitments have synergies and overlaps, but also trade-offs that need to be exposed and navigated.
To tackle this challenge, we will build an Analysis and Decision Platform that integrates the scientific insights and societal considerations developed though our Ecology and Society Themes, with large and complex data developed through our Scale Theme. State-of-the-art AI tools will help design new approaches for collective decision-making within and across landscapes.
The knowledge system will first be applied and tested in detail in our Case Studies. The system will enable us to connect human insights with multi-scalar datasets to inform local decision making and integrate local outcomes with global drivers and targets. This will allow us to investigate the design features of new forms of collective intelligence and will, thus, become a testbed for governance and finance innovations for nature recovery.
In this theme we will also explore how synergies and conflicts between nature recovery, other social and cultural values, and other development objectives that compete for land (agriculture, urbanisation, infrastructure) can be integrated at different spatial scales. We will also explore how different elements of nature recovery combine and scale, leading to integrated strategies for nature that match local and organisational contexts and goals, building resilience for ecosystems and society, while also contributing to national and international goals.
Projects
Theme outputs
- Integration
Thomas White, Talitha Bromwich, Ashley Bang, Leon Bennun, Joseph W. Bull, Michael Clark, E.J. Milner-Gulland, Graham Prescott, Malcolm Starkey, Sophus zu Ermgassen, Hollie Booth (2023). The Nature Positive Journey for Business: A research agenda to enable private sector contributions to the global biodiversity framework.. OSF Preprint.
The 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework calls upon the private sector to take substantial action to mitigate its negative impacts on biodiversity and contribute towards nature recovery. The term ‘Nature Positive’ has gained traction in biodiversity conservation discourse to describe both a societal goal and the ambitions of individual organisations to halt and reverse nature loss. However, enabling businesses to contribute towards Nature Positive outcomes will require major shifts in the way businesses and society operate, and research that can help guide and prioritise business actions.
As a group of researchers and consultants working at the interface between business and biodiversity, we propose a conceptual model through which private sector contributions to a Nature Positive future could be realised and use it to identify priority research questions.
The key questions address:
i) sectoral strategic options,
ii) methods and approaches individual businesses can implement to inform these strategies,
iii) systemic driving forces that influence private sector action, and
iv) how outcomes are measured to deliver Nature Positive contributions.
Collaborations between researchers, businesses and industry bodies are needed to co-design and implement research, where there is currently no coordinated approach to identify and fund priority research areas for Nature Positive themes. A clearly structured and prioritised research agenda is vital to guide effective, equitable and timely action by businesses.
