Project

This research brings together scientists from 6 countries and 9 disciplines spanning natural and social sciences, humanities and creative arts, to conduct action-oriented transdisciplinary research to achieve real change in Satoyama landscapes in Japan and Europe, working closely with local communities and other key stakeholders in land use policy and practice. We will demonstrate testing and refining of coherent principles and common strategies to promote and enhance Social-Ecological Production Landscapes (SEPLs), in contrasting geographic and socio-political contexts. The aim is to provide strong evidence of the value and importance of celebrating and sustaining close functional interdependencies between people and nature in situ, to counteract what we identify as a worrying trend towards viewing nature conservation as essentially about removing human ‘interference’, even in situations where indigenous peoples have until recently lived in stable and synergistic connections with nature, for millennia.