Putting people first: Community engagement and sharing best practice in Catchment Restoration
This month Chris Spray from the Tweed Forum and University of Dundee shares how the team involved in the Eddleston Water project have worked to engage the local community with this important landscape change. Here he reveals his experience of creating and connecting people with this catchment restoration project in the Scottish Borders.
The recent designation of the Eddleston Water project in Scotland as an UNESCO Ecohydrology demonstration site focusses attention on the importance of knowledge sharing across those engaged in river and catchment restoration. As one of 8 new sites recognised by UNESCO and the UK’s first, the Eddleston joins a global network of 37 diverse projects all trying to make a difference through what Tweed Forum (the Eddleston Project Managers) describe as ‘learning by doing’.
Eddleston origins and aims:
Now in its 13th year, the Eddleston project is Scottish Government’s long-running empirical study of the effectiveness of natural flood management (NFM). It is demonstrating what the impact is of using NFM measures in terms of their capacity to reduce flood risk to downstream communities and to improve riparian biodiversity and wider catchment ecology, alongside enhancing delivery of other ecosystem services. Detailed and quality-assured hydrological and ecological monitoring is at the heart of this approach, backed up by a specially developed combined hydrologic-hydraulic catchment model, but this is only one part of the ‘demonstration picture’. From the outset, and along with the Monitoring Strategy a key element of the Scoping study produced by Dundee University in 2010 was a parallel Stakeholder Engagement Strategy.
Targeted Information:
The Eddleston Stakeholder study recognises that ‘proof’ of restoration success is very much in the eye of the beholder, not the originator of the information (sic!). As such, how information is shared, where, when and by whom is often as important as the emerging results from the study itself and what information is subsequently shared. For our ‘academic audience’ sharing best practice focuses on writing papers for key peer-reviewed journals, backed by presentations at relevant conferences.
As such, the context, theories and language of the messages are well-established and recognised. Similarly for policy-makers and practitioners, information can be targeted, and the means and language modified to reflect the most effective channels for communication. Often in these cases, workshops and site visits are a key component.
“The Eddleston Stakeholder study recognises that ‘proof’ of restoration success is very much in the eye of the beholder, not the originator of the information.”
Community Engagement:
When it comes to community engagement though, the picture is both more complex and often even more important as their members – individually and in groups – play a range of key roles that can act as either barriers or opportunities to river restoration and knowledge sharing. Crucially, landowners and land managers bring different forms of knowledge to the table. This can be based on generations of local observation and experience, as opposed to recent data or catchment models. History, recent and ancient can influence their present perceptions, alongside cultural and economic values, such that ‘success’ can look like a very different landscape conceptually and physically to some communities as opposed to researchers or practitioners.
Photos: Types of community engagement: Attending Peebles show and community evenings activities (Credit Colin Maclean and Tweed Forum)
Communities have their own ideas and priorities. Like those of others, these are not static. Alongside recognition of increasing flood risk from climate change, food security has become a much-voiced concern in the Eddleston, raising issues and debate around what the aims should be for catchment ‘restoration’, whilst terms like ‘rewilding’ are so contentious we avoid its use. Language is all-important and we ‘sense-check’ our different publications to ensure the messages we are trying to portray are indeed the same as received by our target audiences.
“We ‘sense-check’ our different publications to ensure the messages we are trying to portray are indeed the same as received by our target audiences.”
Where and when to present results and have the opportunity to actively listen to the ideas and comments of the local community is also key. With Covid-19, this has been a challenge, but in March 2023, we were able to organise another Community event one evening in the village hall. Locally produced food and drink, an informal setting, a range of photos and videos to look at, and an interactive (well questions at any and all times!) presentation and an opportunity to listen were what we aim for. To ensure we focused on the project and their thoughts and didn’t get diverted on to other local issues, we didn’t invite the local council, the press, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency or a wealth of academics, just two of the main on-the-ground project team. Around 40 people from the local area attended this latest one and although one aim is to ‘recruit’ potential new landowners to consider restoration measures on their land, there is no hard sell from us, just a process of gentle awareness raising and reporting back as to what we have been doing and what we have found so far.
Finally, it is worth remembering at all times that the Community have their own communication networks and can easily mobilise support or opposition to restoration ideas and practices. Many of them, especially landowners are potential partners in restoration and all of them are effectively going to be the custodians of the legacy of our restoration activities.
Photos showing the change at Lake Wood, Wormiston and the new river course
(Credit Colin Maclean and Tweed Forum)