About the project

Biodiversity loss and climate change adaptation are two of the most urgent challenges that societies face today. In response, several countries have set ambitious targets and introduced new guidelines and regulations to protect ecosystems and restore nature. Achieving these targets requires the design of policies that are collaborative and inclusive, ensuring that local communities are involved in the planning and, at times, implementation of nature restoration and protection efforts.

For the past decade, significant research work, led by Professor Nikoleta Jones, has focused on increasing local community engagement in biodiversity conservation projects and ensure that the views of locals are incorporated in the roll out of these ambitious policies. This has been done through the development and application of a number of tools capturing social outcomes of nature protection and restoration projects. In this page we present these tools.

Tools we have developed

We have crafted tools to help practitioners capture the socio-economic outcomes of nature restoration and protection projects and assess social equity. These tools are designed to bridge the people-nature gap, empowering those involved in policy delivery to make informed, socially equitable decisions. By embedding techniques from environmental humanities and social sciences, these tools improve the planning and decision-making processes for nature projects.

Social Impact Assessment Tool (SOCIAT)

A tool for the in-depth understanding of the Social Impacts of Nature Protection and Restoration projects.

The SOCIAT tool helps conservation practitioners and scientists to plan actions that will assist in increasing the level of public support for protected areas.

Available in 12 languages, it’s your key for impactful change!

Personal Interview Guide for social impact assessments

PA detailed interview guide has been developed, allowing in-depth exploration of people's relationship with nature protected areas, emphasizing cultural, historical, social, and political elements.

Mapping

A series of new methodologies have been developed to map aspects of social spatial equity within protected areas. These techniques can be used alongside ecological maps, enabling practitioners to make informed decisions during planning processes for protected areas, thereby bridging the people-nature gap.

SOCIAL IMPACTS

Effective designation of Protected Areas requires the careful consideration of their social impacts as these are perceived by people. Influenced by the widely used definition of the International Association of Impact Assessment IASA (IASA, 2019), we define social impacts of PAs as "the intended and unintended social consequences, both positive and negative, which occur because of the designation of a PA and any social change processes invoked by a Protected Area."

SOCIAT focuses on 6 main categories of social impacts (livelihood, human rights, local culture, social relations, wellbeing and knowledge). By exploring these different impacts, park authorities will be able to identify the level of social impacts, how these are distributed across different stakeholders and also how these impacts are distributed across different geographical areas.

PUBLIC SUPPORT

Attitudes of the public towards the Protected Area are explored via SOCIAT with a number of questions capturing both attitude and active support. Participants are initially asked whether they agree with the existence of the Protected Area in order to capture levels of attitude support. Several questions regarding their behaviour when using the PA are also included in the questionnaire.

SOCIAL CAPITAL

There is growing evidence that local social characteristics influence significantly the management of protected areas. In SOCIAT we capture aspects of local social capital including social norms of reciprocity, socio-environmental values, place attachment and demographic characteristics. By exploring these aspects SOCIAT provides park authorities with essential information in order to understand the local context within which perceptions about the protected area are created and identify ways to increase benefits for local communities and promote positive public engagement.

GOVERNANCE

Aspects of governance are also considered an important indicator of the social effectiveness of PAs. Trust for management authorities is key in understanding public support for environmental policies, linked strongly with issues of transparency in PA management.

Similarly, the level of engagement with key stakeholders and the ability to support a PA through different opportunities is also expected to influence the level of support for PAs. Attitudes of the public towards the governance system are explored via SOCIAT with a number of questions capturing both the level of empowerment and trust in organisations responsible for the management of the PA.