Nature connects: Embedding Community Engagement in Landscape-Scale Nature Projects

About

Best-practice public and stakeholder engagement is fundamental to improved land-use decision-making, effective natural resource management, and achieving outcomes that benefit individuals, communities, and places. As landscape-scale nature recovery initiatives expand across England, questions of how to meaningfully involve people, not just ecologically, but socially and institutionally, are becoming increasingly central.

This webinar shares insights from research and practice on embedding community and stakeholder engagement within large-scale nature projects. Drawing on work conducted through a Nattergal-focused research internship examining stakeholder best practice, alongside ongoing doctoral research, the session outlined key principles, common challenges, and practical recommendations for institutionalising engagement in ways that are inclusive, constructive, and grounded in place. Particular attention is given to the skills, roles, and organisational capacities required to move beyond consultation toward sustained, relational engagement.

The session then connects these insights to ongoing applied research across landscape-scale case studies, including Boothby Wildland and Sapperton Wilder, exploring how engagement moves from being a project “component” to an embedded feature of governance, knowledge exchange, and long-term landscape management – a transition many landscape initiatives are currently navigating. Reflections will highlight the institutional conditions that enable engagement to support social legitimacy, adaptive decision-making, and multiple environmental and social co-benefits.

This webinar provides strategic framing and practical lessons for those seeking to integrate community perspectives into the delivery of ambitious environmental change. This includes those seeking to participate in nature markets.