Engaging people with carbon and climate change using landscape scale conservation and biodiversity monitoring

Abstract

Climate change due to anthropogenic increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide is a global phenomenon with a recognised high public profile. The impacts of climate change, however, are mostly felt at a local level. Communicating climate change relevance where people live and where they can make a difference has proven a greater challenge. The Lancashire Wildlife Trust is engaging people, politicians and businesses with the local causes and impacts of climate change through collaborative working across the 100 km2 Carbon Landscape between Manchester and Liverpool. Past coal and peat extraction created the scarred landscapes today undergoing a renaissance as ecologically-rich wetlands. In the face of changing climate, a resilient ecosystem here is vital to ensure that carbon dioxide stays locked up in the remaining peat and restoration offers future sequestration possibilities. The Biodiverse Society Project engages people with wildlife recording and sensitises them to the impacts of climate change. Boosting the biological recording community increases the data available to planners and politicians for effective evidence-based management of landscape scale biodiversity. Reviewing these two projects identifies how engaging communities with landscape scale conservation approaches and including climate change messaging both bolsters local climate action and helps build the wider societal support needed.