Case Study: Scottish Land Commission x Alys Daniels-Creasey

ECCI’s NERC Consultancy Programme connects businesses, start-ups/SMEs and third sector organisations with a NERC-funded PhD student, to undertake meaningful research projects connected to climate change - part of the Edinburgh Earth, Ecology and Environment Doctoral Training Partnership (led by the School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh). 

A total of 10 internships were successfully delivered in 2023/24, matching PhD candidates with a range of partners in NERC priority areas. 

Delivering community benefits from nature restoration work: The Scottish Land Commission x Alys Daniels-Creasey

One such partner was the Scottish Land Commission - a public body funded by the Scottish Government that seeks to create a Scotland where land is owned and used in ways that are fair, responsible and productive.

SLC was matched with Alys Daniels-Creasey, a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, who has a background in social sciences and is interested in the local community implications of natural capital markets and environmental/land use decision-making in Scotland.

The aim of the placement was to design and conduct qualitative research (interviews) and write a summary report on community benefits from nature restoration projects within the Cairngorms National Park. The research sought to understand what participants perceive to be the key community benefits currently delivered by their work, and what they feel are the drivers and constraints related to this.

Interviewing nature restoration professionals

Alys interviewed six people who work on various aspects of nature restoration in the Cairngorms National Park to understand their perspectives on the current and possible future delivery of community benefits through their efforts and see what work might need doing in terms of supporting people in similar roles to deliver similar outcomes.

Socio-cultural benefits realised; economic benefits a challenge?

Alys’ findings suggest that nature restoration professionals are often passionate about how their work can benefit local communities and can offer various examples of how this is already being done, such as increased nature access, skills development opportunities, and strengthening ties between people and place - as well as indirect benefits to the wider local economy through increased local employment and ecotourism.

Alongside this, discussions highlighted some of the challenges involved in delivering benefits, touching on the financial uncertainties involved in making these work (often in relation to hesitancy around natural capital markets) and an assumed lack of resulting community benefit.

Key takeaways: the best way forward?

Reflecting on the key takeaways of her research, Alys writes: “Perhaps a key takeaway of this small-scale interview project is that it is important to keep having these conversations: the ‘best’ way forward, in terms of what types of community benefits we should be striving to deliver and how nature restoration professionals can best be supported in doing these, is not a settled matter.

“One thing that does remain clear from this work, though, is that those working hard to restore nature hold a lot of care, not just for securing ecological futures but also socio-cultural ones too.

“My hope is that we can keep developing our collective vision for what delivering ecological and community benefit from restoration work can look like across Scotland.”

Hanna Wheatley, Scottish Land Commission, said: “The NERC placement provided a brilliant resource for the Commission, allowing us to undertake a relatively small but very focused piece of research, which we would not otherwise have done. Alys brought a wealth of knowledge, skills and experience to the placement. We will be using this work further develop a programme of work internally.” 

Find out more about Alys’s work

Read Alys’ blog about her work, which links to the “Delivering community benefits from nature restoration projects in the Cairngorms National Park Report”.

Submit project proposals

ECCI is currently on the hunt for new industry partners who could benefit from PhD student support and expertise.

• All internships are fully funded, with no cost to the business, and run from November 2024 - May 2025.
• Placements may be conducted in parts remotely.
• The placement duration is 10 days over maximum 10 weeks.

Complete the simple online application by Tuesday 5 November.