New Understandings of Ecological, Economic and Social Interactions in a Lakeland Catchment

Project Status: Completed (See Final Report Summary)
Type of Project: Scoping Study
Principal Investigator: Dr Stephen Maberly, CEH Lancaster (Email)

Publications, Data and Other Outputs

Objectives

This scoping study, completed 2005, looked at the nature of different kinds of knowledge (social, ecological, economic, cultural) that could be brought to bear on the ecological problems in Loweswater (a small closed catchment within the Lake District National Park).

It created dialogue between those with a stake in Loweswater (notably the 13 farming families that live and work there), environmental agencies and natural and social scientists. This study arose from the discovery that farmers within the catchment had organised themselves into a group to address the perceived issue of declining water quality and associated algal blooms on Loweswater resulting from agricultural practices. CEH are currently negotiating with Defra and the farmers to provide them with the data they need in order to verify and appropriately address this issue.      

Highlights
• The development of a mutual understanding of approaches between social and ecological scientists.
• The research brought about recognition that the strong initial focus of the research (pollution of the lake in the catchment) needed to be broadened. The research came to be more about past, present and future policy changes affecting this rural catchment; how those living in the catchment do, or might in future, interact with such policy changes; and the consequent implications of this for policy.
• A drawing together of the community within Loweswater (and perhaps including the researchers from Lancaster) towards achieving common objectives.

Highlights of stakeholder or public engagement
• Building up relationships & trust within the catchment
• Interactions with a representation of the community through semi-structured interviews
• Stakeholder meeting in a pub in the catchment with representatives from the key institutional and other stakeholders within the catchment (EA, RDS (Defra), LDNPA, National Trust, farmers) provided an opportunity to advance the research focus and to achieve greater integration of the research with a range of the most relevant actors.
• Some of the relationships within the catchment were substantially developed through the carrying out of the research. Towards the end of the research, the researchers felt that they were moving towards a united vision for the catchment which included a desire for a community-led approach.
• Institutional broadmindedness was developed through the research and perhaps particularly through the workshop which brought about a strong sense of responsiveness, support, financial and other resource commitments (e.g. Rural Development Service funding, Environment Agency (EA) provision of data, EA leniency on enforcement as a results of seeing farmers/community making attempts to improve things).