STAND: Overcoming scale-mismatch for designing and governing treescape expansion to benefit people and nature

Woodland creation forms a core part of the UK Government's Net Zero Strategy, with a target to create 30,000 ha new woodland per year by 2024. National policy rarely maps neatly onto actions at lower scales, with this scale mismatch creating a barrier to effective treescape expansion. STAND will combine ecological and biophysical modelling with participatory scenario planning, underpinned by a strong theoretical framework, to identify the design and governance of future treescapes that can achieve the best outcomes for people and nature. STAND addresses all three programme themes (with a particular focus on themes 1 & 2) and complements research funded through the first round of the Treescapes programme.

The ecological and climate impacts of treescape expansion depend on the type, location and configuration of land-use change. Modelling the expected consequences of alternative land-use scenarios can aid decision making by making explicit the advantages and disadvantages of different modes of treescape expansion. STAND will use a multi-criteria approach that considers complementary and competing land uses and accounts for other impacts (e.g. on food and timber production); this is critical for making trade-offs explicit and avoiding unintended consequences. We will deploy this interdisciplinary approach in two case study landscapes (Elenydd-Mallaen and North Pennines & Dales) where land management influences, and is influenced by, actors and stakeholders working at different scales (e.g. private landowners, local authorities, devolved governments). We will co-produce land-use scenarios representing different modes of treescape expansion, then explore the challenges, opportunities, synergies, and trade-offs of each scenario. These scenarios will be developed at the landscape-scale, and will principally reflect local- to regional interests and values. As treescape expansion also impacts more distant beneficiaries, we will compare our bottom-up landscape-scale approach with a top-down UK-scale scenario modelling exercise. For each case study landscape, we will identify how much treescape expansion and other land use/management change are needed to meet a UK land sector net zero target, the extent to which this ambition is compatible with local stakeholder values and preferences, and how potential future land-use change is best governed by the principles and practices of scale-dependent collaborative advantage.

WP1 will simulate and evaluate thousands of land use scenarios at the UK-scale to identify which modes of treescape expansion, in combination with other land use/management changes, can deliver a net zero UK land sector. WP2 will focus on two case study landscapes, where we will characterise the interests, goals, and preferences of stakeholders, explore the synergies and trade-offs embodied in co-produced landscape-scale scenarios of treescape expansion, and identify scale-dependent collaborative advantage in the capacities of different actors across local, regional and national scales. WP3 will synthesise the natural, social and political science outputs of WP1&2 to develop local Treescape Expansion Action Plans for each case study landscape, and to evaluate the feasibility of delivering a net zero UK land sector given local barriers. We will also provide guidance on best practices for using participatory approaches to plan treescape expansion. Finally, WP4 will provide cross-cutting support to ensure our research outputs reach the right people in the right format, and that a broad audience is involved in the ensuing discussions about future land use.

In sum, STAND will provide an answer to how landscape-scale treescape expansion can be designed and governed across nested scales to achieve the best outcomes for people and nature.