News

More with trees: Long-term learning and adaptation of urban forest governance in the Mersey Forest

In a new paper published in Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, CMS's Professor Lawrence examines the 30-year evolution of the Mersey Forest, one of the UK's longest-running urban forestry initiatives. The study uses this rare long-term case to explore how urban forest programmes adapt and endure through changing political, financial and environmental contexts.

The findings suggest that success in urban forestry is reflected in more than tree-planting targets. Long-term partnerships, adaptive governance, organisational learning, and evidence-based practice all play critical roles in sustaining impact over time.

Read the free article paper More with trees: Long-term learning and adaptation of urban forest governance in the Mersey Forest - ScienceDirect

New Research Calls for More Ethical and Impactful Research with Community Landowners in Scotland

A new report, conducted at the Centre for Mountain Studies at UHI Perth and funded by SEFARI Gateway, has called for a fundamental shift in how research involving community landowners is conducted, warning that stronger collaboration and resource investment are needed to ensure research benefits communities, decision-makers, and researchers.

The research highlights the wealth of knowledge held by community landowners and argues that their experience provides evidence for understanding how local ownership contributes to sustainable development and community resilience. However, it concludes that too often research can place significant demands on communities, especially when respondents see very little benefit or meaningful outcomes in return.

The report calls for coordinated action across research institutions, funding bodies, policymakers and community organisations to improve practice. Its recommendations include giving communities greater influence over research design and priorities, improving communication between researchers and communities, addressing institutional barriers – such as funding - that can limit good practice, and recognising that ethical research demands long-term collaboration rather than simply one-off engagements.

Catriona Mallows, Research Associate at the Centre for Mountain Studies, said:

This research has confirmed that there are many positive research engagements with community landowners in Scotland. However, there are instances of poor practice, including repeated requests to participate in research, communities having little influence over research questions, methodologies or outputs, and researchers failing to share their findings. Our report sets out ways to change this pattern and support better research with community landowners.

The research, which has taken place since early 2025, drew on multi-sectoral workshops, literature reviews and secondary data analysis to explore experiences of research across Scotland’s community land sector.

Among its recommendations, the report calls for researchers to engage with communities earlier in the research process and to undertake background work before approaching organisations and individuals. It also recommends that long-term, trusting and respectful relationships are prioritised over transactional engagement, that research findings are shared in accessible ways beyond formal reports academic outputs, and that ethical approval is viewed as an ongoing commitment rather than an administrative step.

The research also highlights governance approaches that can strengthen research partnerships, including the use of Memoranda of Understanding and community steering groups. It further recommends recognising and, where appropriate, compensating community members for their time, experience and knowledge, whether through financial means or otherwise.

The findings suggest that many of the challenges experienced by both researchers and communities arise not through individual failings, but because of wider institutional pressures including limited funding, tight project timescales and academic expectations that can make meaningful engagement difficult.

Project lead, Catriona Mallows, added:

...researchers often find themselves balancing the expectations of communities, funders and their own institutions, sometimes at the centre of a complex set of demands and drivers. Our report demonstrates that there are practical principles that can make research better for those involved. This includes building trusting relationships, ensuring open and clear communication between all parties, having those difficult conversations about data ownership and use, and always respecting community experience and knowledge. As part of supporting more ethical and sustainable research, we also encourage universities, research institutions and funders to examine how their own structures support more mutually beneficial research.

Charles Bestwick, Director at SEFARI Gateway, said:

This work is timely and its recommendations identify the crucial need for research centred with communities to prioritise the building of mutual understanding and cooperation. It recognises the critical need for communities to be partners in honing research where it is focused to delivering for communities: research that is done with – and not to – communities.

The research concludes that ethical research is a shared responsibility and that coordination across the research sector can create more relevant, impactful and trusted evidence while also reducing unnecessary burdens on community landowners.

The full report sets out a series of recommendations for researchers, funders, policy makers and community organisations themselves in order to support more equitable research on community landownership.

• Research was conducted by Catriona Mallows at the Centre for Mountain Studies at UHI Perth and Bobby Macaulay, Community Landownership Academic Network
• Project ran from 2025 – 2026
• Full report available online

Mike Daniel's Churchill Fellowship

Mike is delighted and grateful that he has been awarded a Churchill Fellowship for 2026. He said:

"I’m excited to be connecting with leading experts in community hunting internationally and exploring new insights to help drive positive change. Thank you to the Churchill Fellowship for this opportunity.

"I’ll be exploring innovative solutions from other countries to help Scotland and the UK develop community hunting as a means to manage deer for biodiversity, carbon and local people. How can we overcome the barriers hindering communities stewarding the land and benefiting from deer management? The barriers of land access; culture; food safety & hygiene regulations; governance; access to equipment, training and capacity. How can tensions over different deer densities on neighbouring land be overcome? What is needed for developing the community hunting scene in Scotland to deliver environmentally and socially for local communities?

"Richard Williams and Lizzie Wilder Williams and I conducted a study in 2024 looking at existing schemes such as the Arkaig Community Forest, the Knoydart Foundation, The North Harris Trust, Beinn Eighe and Creag Meagaidh National Nature Reserves among others, and other landowners are currently looking at how they can develop schemes.

"I'm really keen to hear any key points that need to be answered, particularly around challenges, as we seek to develop community hunting to better manage our burgeoning deer populations in the absence of natural predators."

For more information see: Mike Daniels - The Churchill Fellowship

Understanding changes in demand for largescale community land acquisitions

Bobby Macaulay and Catriona Mallows from the Centre for Mountain Studies have recently published a report for the Scottish Land Commission, funded by SEFARI Gateway.

While the number of large-scale community land acquisitions has slowed over the last decade, this appears to be driven by a growing number of barriers. These include stretched community capacity, limited funding, complex legislation, reliance on willing sellers, and challenges in maintaining long-term local support.

The research found that community interest in acquiring and managing land remains strong, but many opportunities never progress to ownership. It also highlights practical solutions, including strengthening support networks, improving access to funding, simplifying acquisition mechanisms, and promoting alternative routes to community empowerment.

These findings provide valuable insight into what is helping, and hindering, communities seeking greater control over their local future.

Read the report online: SEFARI Fellowship to understand changes in demand for largescale community land acquisitions and identify barriers and solutions to new acquisitions

Social studies of rural communities and private sector woodland creation in south Scotland – two Masters theses from the University of Copenhagen

Two students from the University of Copenhagen were hosted by the Centre for Mountain Studies last summer (2023). They had contacted Professor Anna Lawrence to ask for support in developing their dissertation work for their Masters degrees, in response to her research on communities’ experience of engaging with new forestry planting and potential for more community benefits, particularly in the southern uplands of Scotland. Anna welcomed the opportunity for new perspectives from students with experience of continental Europe. She put them in touch with community organisations and groups in the Borders and in Galloway – regions which are much less represented in studies of community land management.

Both students chose situations where private landowners had planted, or proposed to plant, new woodland (of which the majority was conifer plantation), and to bring specific theoretical frameworks and research methods to bear on those experiences. We helped them to meet stakeholders, and then stepped aside to allow them to bring their own interpretation to what they found.

They’ve prepared summaries of their theses, which are available below.

Congratulations to Sophie and Laura on attaining their Masters degrees.

Differences in stakeholder perceptions on woodland creation in South Scotland - Sophie Zeller, MSc Nature Management, University of Copenhagen

Exploration of Community Members' Plural Values - Laura Tilli, MSc Environment and Development, University of Copenhagen