| Doctoral Research Findings |
Dr Neil Windett has recently been awarded a PhD from the University of Cumbria, on completion of his research into the influence of aesthetic valuation in nature conservation. Neil’s study has shown that for the Lake District National Park, divergent aesthetic valuation influences the conservation of natural capital integral to its cultural landscape. Before this research, little was known about how conservationists in leadership roles and their organisations’ stakeholders value aesthetically the UK’s National Parks and whether this influences conservation.
Deep insight into the beliefs and values of participants was facilitated through a phenomenological approach and a novel qualitative method combining photo elicitation and 'diamond nine' ranking, triangulated by ‘SWOT’ analysis.
Summarising the relevance of aesthetic evaluation to nature conservation, Neil explains:
"The research participants perceived the Lake District as a rural idyll. But these findings have implications for real-world conservation, because the aesthetic value assigned by participants to natural capital contributed to how they influenced its physical management. This is critically important because the conservationist participants hold influential leadership roles in organisations which together own or lease over one third of the National Park.
"Participants from the National Trust, characterised in the research as anthropocentric, valued aesthetically the natural capital associated with a traditional cultural landscape, largely reflected in a landscape conservation approach. However, conservationists from other organisations, usually in more eco-centric roles, attributed aesthetic value to natural capital of wild character, mirrored in a nature conservation approach. Contrary to the views of most conservationist participants, few other participants appeared to perceive threats such as climate change, declining biodiversity and a National Park Authority suffering continuous budget cuts."
Neil’s PhD thesis is available at: https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/9134/
Recommendations link the findings to the Cumbria Local Nature Recovery Strategy in the Lake District.
Photograph: Castleriggs Stone Circle, Credit: Neil Windett
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