Research team

Partners

Theme

ExCASES Missions provide short, intense periods of focus towards issues 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.     

Aims

• To evaluate the evidence of the impacts of dogs on nature, and interventions to manage these impacts, through facilitating an evidence-led, deliberative and participatory process with stakeholders; 

• To explore available data and share best practice, through collating technical data on impacts and evidence as well as through facilitating diverse stakeholder discussions; 

• To explore if and how different groups’ perceptions and practices affect their assessment of impacts, interventions, behaviours and required actions. 

Approach

ExCASES Missions provide short, intense periods of focus towards issues that RENEW partners and external stakeholders have identified as priorities for exploration when considering solutions for biodiversity renewal. 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.   

Dog ownership encourages people to exercise, bringing physical, social and psychological benefits, and can positively influence appreciation and connectedness with nature. However, dogs can also cause disruption to others’ enjoyment of public spaces through poor behaviours and fouling, and their direct and indirect impacts on wildlife (disturbance, predation, fouling, diet) are recognised as a significant conservation issue. While global trends indicate an overall negative effect on wildlife, the impacts of dogs are often context-specific and in many cases poorly evidenced, so this issue needs further analysis. 

Communities have strong belief systems regarding how dogs should behave and be managed. Low compliance levels with conservation guidance and recommendations (e.g., using a lead, or avoiding sensitive habitats) and assumed societal ‘norms’ that attempt to limit the impacts of dogs can cause considerable conflict. In the UK, managing dogs and their owners is a priority for most nature conservation organisations and many different approaches are used by land managing stakeholders. However, currently the sharing of best practice and knowledge about evidencing impacts of different interventions and strategies is limited. 

This ExCASES mission is working to overcome these knowledge gaps by convening a diverse group of stakeholders to holistically evaluate evidence of interactions between people, dogs, and nature. Initially, we are drawing on findings from the Protected Site Strategies systematic review being completed by Theme 2 researchers (focusing on community action), to collate evidence from grey and academic literature on the nature of dog impacts and the measures being taken to reduce negative impacts. We will then work collaboratively with RENEW partners and stakeholders to combine this technical information with practitioner knowledge and experience, to identify key problem areas and effective mitigations.

Phase two of this mission will explore and mediate land managers’ and dog walkers’ perceptions and expectations of behaviours that will prioritise outcomes for nature. We will consider whether different ways of framing the issue can support sustainable behaviour change, drawing on best practice from projects that are proactively seeking to balance the needs of people, dogs, and the environment.