Improving public engagement for maximised benefits of forest and woodland expansion and creation

This knowledge exchange will bring together the research of several Future of UK Treescapes projects and apply it to a forest and woodland creation project - The Forth Climate Forest (FCF), which will act as a case study, to improve understanding of how to maximise the benefits of forest and woodland expansion and creation through better public engagement and involvement. We will synthesise the research of the Treescapes projects Connected Treescapes, TreE_PlaNat, AFFORE3ST and Branching Out and apply them to community engagement workshops, with the aim of developing and testing new and dynamic ways to involve local communities in tree planting and woodland creation and expansion. We will produce practice notes for policy makers and practitioners and resources for the public will apply Treescapes research to maximise the benefits gained from forest and woodland creation and expansion.

FCF is a new, 10-year project in the Forth Valley area of Scotland aiming to increase canopy cover, forest area and connectivity, provide carbon storage for climate change mitigation, support biodiversity and provide diverse ecosystem services. It centres on communities, aiming to be implemented both for and with local people. FCF is an ideal case study because of its relatively large, regional scale, the diverse communities its range encompasses and because of the range of partners involved in its implementation, allowing us to explore a variety of perspectives and knowledge types and to produce results with broad application.

Maximising the benefits of tree planting can be difficult and while forest creation projects aspire to effective community engagement, local support can be variable - forest and woodland creation can involve radical landscape change, and this can lead to conflict with local people. This could be avoided if practices to consult with and involve locals were improved. In this project, we will work with the FCF and partners in The Woodland Trust, Scottish Forestry and Stirling and Clackmannanshire councils to understand the benefits and challenges associated with forest and woodland creation for different public and community needs, including reductions in pollution exposure and well-being benefits. We will work with local community groups and will explore new ways of communicating to understand and integrate diverse public perspectives. To achieve this, we will:
1) facilitate an initial workshop to synthesise research across the collaborating Treescapes projects and understand how best to apply this to the needs of afforestation projects, using the FCF and partners as example stakeholders.
2) run 3 field-based workshops with local communities where knowledge and perspectives on forest and woodland expansion and creation will be exchanged between researchers, project partners and local people. These workshops will each have a main theme (Histories, biodiversity and multiple benefits; Service provision in urban environments; Cultural and social connections), as directed by the leading Treescapes project.
3) host a final workshop with all collaborators, projects partners and stakeholders where the results of the synthesis and field workshops will be summarized and finalised into a plan for 3 outputs.

Our findings will be communicated through two practice notes on: 1. managing benefits and challenges of forest and woodland expansion and creation and 2. best practices for community engagement and via a website and information leaflet on the benefits of woodland creation and expansion made for and with the local community. This project will increase the impact and reach of the participating Treescapes projects by providing them with new opportunities to engage with members of the public and to apply their results to a new regional example while directly influencing policy makers and practitioners at local and national scales.