• Project Dates: 2010 - 2012
• Project Leader: David Harvey
• Sponsors: ESRC/RELU

This project looked at how we articulate and communicate whole system assessments and inherently uncertain predictions of the causes and effects of environmental change; how we reconcile conflicting interests with common necessity and purpose; and how we encourage interdisciplinary working, stakeholder engagement and knowledge exchange. We believed we could identify the key systematic relationships between, for instance, land use, landscape appearance and environmental effects, and also identify the major differences of judgment and knowledge about the ways in which these key relationships work - what they mean for the management of the system. We explored this approach with a number of stakeholders and practising landscape managers, focusing, in the first instance, on the Northumberland National Park. We expected to develop a set of mechanisms and procedures (a ‘scope’) to do this, with the primary purpose of helping articulate and communicate different perceptions and understandings of the major relationships and issues.