Published on 20 August 2024
Clare Bissell (Project Lead) – National Trust
Michelle Twena – National Trust
David Bavin – National Trust
Matthew Heard – National Trust
Sarah Crowley – University of Exeter
All of RENEW’s 30+ partners were invited to participate in this mission.
ExCASES missions provide short, intense periods of focus towards issues that have been communicated as priorities for RENEW partner organisations and external stakeholders. The ExCASES team work collaboratively with people across different sectors and disciplines, co-designing research and participatory processes to generate empowering outcomes for people and the environment.
This mission sought to uncover the diversity of values, worldviews and understanding which shape multistakeholder aspirations for ‘biodiversity renewal’, with a focus on the RENEW research community and project partners. There are many different perspectives on what ‘biodiversity renewal’ means and what it looks like, which can sometimes present a barrier to collaboration and effective action. This mission aimed to:
The RENEW community comprises a wide range of different viewpoints and disciplines from across science, arts, humanities, policy, business, conservation, land management and community action. This diversity is part of RENEW’s strength, but it also brings a wide range of perspectives, languages, and ways of working.
In this mission, we addressed this plurality head on, inviting partners to join us in collectively uncovering these different worldviews and building a shared understanding of what biodiversity renewal outcomes might look like, how their benefits might be felt and what our preferences are for achieving them.
Our approach included use of the Restoration Partnership Development Tool (RPDT), developed by academics at the University of Edinburgh and University of Cambridge. The tool elicits and facilitates deliberation on a range of stakeholder perspectives about important areas within contemporary conservation discourse, practices, and aspirations. Everyone in the RENEW community (e.g. project academics, support staff, PhD students, partner organisation representatives) was invited to participate in an online survey, which asked participants to respond to a series of 40 statements, with responses helping to measure their attitudes and perceptions. The survey data was fed into the RPDT analysis app to generate visual outputs displaying levels of agreement and consensus across participants. We then ran a participatory workshop at RENEW’s Biodiversity Parliament event in November 2024 – the project’s annual meeting that brings together researchers, partners, and support staff from the RENEW community to connect, reflect on progress, and explore the challenges and opportunities for biodiversity renewal. During the workshop, we presented findings from the survey and used the visual outputs to prompt deliberation on wide-ranging stakeholder perspectives and aspirations. We facilitated sensitive discussion of areas of agreement and disagreement, improving mutual understanding and a shared vision for what is needed to achieve biodiversity renewal.
Key themes and findings from the process are captured in the mission report and the collective visions produced during the workshop have been published to provide further reflection and inspiration.
The participatory process taken in this mission helped participants to understand each other’s points of view, which we hope will help contribute to fairer and more effective biodiversity renewal practices, strategies and policies. This mission could be the beginning of a conversation for identifying new and potentially fruitful collaborations, and perhaps research gaps or future trajectories within and beyond RENEW. You can access the mission report and collective visions below.
The Future of Biodiversity Renewal mission report
The Future of Biodiversity Renewal: Aspirational Visions
Download the Aspirational Visions (Release date: 12th August 2025)
Banner image: Journeys with Sean, Unsplash
