‘We want to be the hosts of this story’: Learning from community-led approaches to data governance of land use for nature recovery

Abstract

Debates abound regarding how to use land for nature recovery and environmental governance. Such decisions require an understanding of benefits and trade-offs, and increasingly rely on vast quantities of data, delivered through digital technologies. However, barriers such as data accessibility, adequacy, communication, knowledge types and technical capabilities prevent more equitable engagement with such decision-making. Efforts to improve this include academic, policy and private sector initiatives, from citizen science to participatory scenario planning. Despite this, the use of data and technology in land use and nature recovery decision-making remains opaque, especially at the community level. Alongside this, there is a lack of evidence that data leads to improved outcomes for nature; evidence suggests in some cases that more data can exacerbate issues of exploitation. Ethical questions arise around the datafication of land and nature governance, where data ownership influences power dynamics. Concerns include the privatisation of nature data, a focus on a narrow set of values and epistemologies, and limited access hindering democratic governance. In this context, we explore whether improved data access can enhance understanding of land use change for nature recovery, focusing on community-led approaches. We used a mixed-methods approach comprising stakeholder interviews and surveys, situated within Galloway and Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere, part of an international network of Biospheres Reserves. We find that lack of data contributes to conflict and disempowerment, leading to community attempts to take ownership of the process of creating, accessing and managing data. This includes creative, non-technological approaches to surface the less easily quantified aspects of landscape-scale change, from treasured landscapes to ‘desire lines’ (a track created by humans or other nature through preference or habit where one does not exist). We find evidence that this approach is leading to greater engagement with land use and nature recovery, improved environmental governance and an evolution of environmental datafication. We conclude by arguing that nature data should be treated as a common good, with considered governance, sharedness and reciprocity. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.