A family walking in nature
New forest in fall
A picture of British woodland
RENEW

Renewing biodiversity through a people-in-nature approach

Renewing biodiversity through a people-in-nature approach

RENEW is a five-year partnership programme to develop solutions to one of the major environmental challenges for humankind: the renewal of biodiversity.

We are in a biodiversity crisis. A million species of plants and animals are threatened with global extinction, and wildlife populations across much of the planet have been dramatically reduced. This is of profound concern because biodiversity underpins human existence. RENEW is working, with a sense of urgency, to reshape understanding and action on biodiversity renewal across scales, creating knowledge, and influencing national institutions, communities and individuals. Our focus is on a ‘people-in-nature’ approach, reflecting the two-way, dynamic relations between people and nature and the need to develop a relational approach to renew our life-support systems.

Funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the programme is a collaboration between the University of Exeter and the National Trust, and has been co-designed and developed with over 30 partners from a diverse range of sectors. RENEW is led by Professors Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova, Kevin Gaston, and Catriona McKinnon from the University of Exeter, and Professor Rosie Hails from the National Trust.

News

An image of three deer standing in a pink field of heather.

21 August 2024

Seeing the Forest for the Deer. ExCASES first mission is published.

The mission oriented around a series of workshops with relevant stakeholders, which included many participants who are not usually involved in deer management activities and decisions (e.g., food justice and redistribution organisations, local councillors, academics and educators, animal welfare and countryside experts). By engaging a wider range of voices we were able to collectively explore [...]
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A landscape image with heather growing across a valley.

20 August 2024

ExCASES mission: The Future of Biodiversity Renewal

Research team Claire Bissell - National Trust Michelle Twena -National Trust David Bavin - National Trust Matthew Heard - National Trust Sarah Crowley - University of Exeter Collaborators All of RENEW’s 30+ partners are being invited to participate in this exciting mission. Aims  ExCASES missions provide short, intense periods of focus towards issues that have been [...]
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The spiral pattern of a cactus viewed from above, with mathematical symbols overlaid

16 August 2024

Towards an ecological mathematics: new correspondences with the natural world

23 September 2024, 11:00-12:30, hybrid Location: Online via Microsoft Teams or in-person in the Trevithick Room, Environmental and Sustainability Institute (ESI), University of Exeter Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall, TR10 9FE Mathematics plays a fundamental role in climate and biodiversity research. However, its uses remain largely separate from advances in environmental thought, particularly in the social […]

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