The School hosted a major national conference on 5 July, for public bodies and stakeholders involved in the management and protection of common land in England and Wales. The conference was attended by delegates representing a diverse range of public bodies (including Natural England, DEFRA, and local government bodies), commons organisations, NGOs and farmers organisations. The Conference concluded the School’s Building Commons Knowledge research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Building Commons Knowledge continued the work of the AHRC Contested Common Land research project, a collaborative project from 2007-2010 by Newcastle and Lancaster Universities. Professor Chris Rodgers was Principal Investigator of both projects.
The conference addressed two themes: it considered new models for sustainable commons governance, and (secondly) how we can best recognise, protect and celebrate the cultural heritage of the modern commons. Key outcomes were a recognition that for “sustainable” commons governance we need to provide for: (i) governance that will endure for the long term, that will provide for the inclusive and effective governance of common land for the public benefit and for that of stakeholders; and (ii) governance that will reconcile public access and recreation on the one hand with economic resource use (for example agriculture) on the other - and with nature conservation and with other environmental demands now made on the modern commons.
Papers were delivered by Julia Aglionby (Director of the National Centre for the Uplands, and Chair of the Foundation for Common Land), Kate Ashbrook (general secretary of the Open Spaces Society), Graham Bathe (Trustee of both the Open Spaces Society and the Foundation for Common Land), Duncan Mackay (Natural England's Principal Adviser, Reconnecting People and Nature), Chris Short (Senior Research Fellow at the Countryside and Community Research Institute), and Professor Angus Winchester and Dr Ellie Straughton (Lancaster University).
Professor Chris Rodgers commented; “The AHRC commons research has stimulated new ideas and thinking on how to best manage our commons for the future. The project’s stakeholder workshops and this conference have also brought together a wide range of groups and bodies with an interest in commons management in order to share good practice and to develop ideas that will have practical benefit to commons management in the future. The Arts and Humanities Research Council have used the research project as an exemplar of the research impact of interdisciplinary research in the humanities. Building Commons Knowledge has deepened an extended that impact in important ways”.
More information and conference papers can be found here.
published on: 16th August 2013