Sustainable landscapes
We were delighted to host Pete Cairns of Northwoods Rewilding, one of this year’s Prize for the Environment finalists, for round-table discussions of the potential for trans- and interdisciplinary research, on Friday 1 November 2024. We spent a very convivial couple of hours enjoying (in the words of one participant) a ‘pico-sabbatical’ at the Botanic Gardens. Later in the day, StACCS members met with the team from Corrour Estate.
There’s already a lot of research going on at St Andrews into ways of managing landscapes (in Scotland and around the world) more sustainably. But there remains huge potential for further collaboration between the natural and social sciences, arts and humanities, to tackle real-world problems. Often what seem, on the surface, to be questions of carbon, or biodiversity, or pollution perhaps, turn out on deeper analysis really to be just as much concerned with identity, community, power, economics, or injustice.
During our discussions we identified a lot of exciting opportunities also for research that embraces key StACCS themes around ‘careful‘ or ‘creative‘ research methods.
This was the latest in a recent series of discussion meetings on the theme of ‘sustainable uplands’, which have already generated proposals for interdisciplinary PhD projects for various funding rounds. To get involved in any future meetings, please email [email protected].