In August, Estonia’s city of Tartu welcomed 600 conservation practitioners and scientists for the Society for Ecological Restoration’s 14th conference in Europe. The regional event takes place every two years as an opportunity for participants to share novel research, approaches, and perspectives linked to the restoration of Europe’s grasslands, wetlands, and forests. Genevieve Stephens, RSPB Kazakh Steppe Project Officer, shares her experience of the conference and examples of the breadth of conservation initiatives taking place from the rivers of Finland to the mountains of Bulgaria.
I arrived in Estonia from west Kazakhstan, where I had the spent the previous three weeks conducting interviews in remote, pastoral communities as part of the Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme-funded restoration planning project, ‘Learning from the past, restoring for the future: Rewilding West Kazakhstan’s Steppe.’
I was curious to learn from restoration approaches in this part of Europe and how these lessons might be applied to our work across the steppe grasslands of Kazakhstan.
The ruins of Tartu Cathedral, a symbol of the city’s medieval history. Credit: Genevieve Stephens/RSPB.
Joining me from the RSPB were Adam Devenish, a conservation scientist and fellow colleague in the Kazakh Steppe team, Joelene Hughes, the RSPB’s principal social scientist, and Jeremy Roberts, manager of the Cairngorms Connect programme in Scotland.
We were part of a larger cohort of participants from Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme-funded projects, each working to restore landscapes across Europe, and gathering at the conference to share insights and learn from each other's initiatives during our breaks and evening discussions.
Collaborative Behaviour and Competency ToolThough I might be a little biased, some of my favourite presentations came from my fellow RSPB colleagues. A highlight was Joelene’s introduction to the ‘Collaborative Behaviour and Competency Tool’, developed in partnership with Warwick Business School. The tool follows the premise that, as landscapes are valued and used by a wide range of groups, successful landscape-scale conservation relies on collaboration with different people, from landowners and farmers to businesses, tourists, policy makers and local communities. Effective collaboration, therefore, depends on individuals, relationships and interpersonal skills - which are often overlooked during recruitment or staff training.
The tool offers guidance for both identifying and developing collaborative partnerships, as well as assessing an individual’s collaborative behaviours and competencies. Through in-depth interviews with a range of stakeholders involved in conservation, the team asked which skills were critical to collaboration, and which hindered it. Their results identified 28 behaviours thought to promote effective collaboration and 10 hindering behaviours, which they categorised across three dimensions – cultural, relational, and operational. To build a culture of collaboration, effective behaviours included understanding the vision, sharing information, and reconciling different perspectives, while hindrances involved a lack of empathy and pursuing personal agendas. Strong relationship building skills included trust, flexibility, and positivity, with exploitation and a narrow, short-term focus being detrimental. Operational skills that supported successful collaboration were a strategic, long-term approach, proactive engagement, and problem-solving.
Joelene’s talk really resonated with me – having experienced conservation success often resulting from careful negotiations, patience, empathy, and an invaluable dose of good humour.
Cairngorms ConnectBringing a perspective from the Eastern highlands of Scotland, Jeremy gave a brilliant overview of how the Cairngorms Connect programme is successfully managing deer populations while enhancing woodland in the absence of predators.
Cairngorms Connect is a partnership of neighbouring land managers (Wildland Limited, RSPB Scotland, Forestry and Land Scotland and NatureScot) working towards a 200-year vision to restore habitats, species, and natural processes across a large part of the Cairngorms National Park. The project covers over 600 square kilometres, including ancient woodlands, rivers, lochs, mountain ranges, and blanket bogs, which support a variety of wildlife, from eagles and Red Squirrels to rare plants and insects.
Jeremy explained how collaborative deer management plays a crucial role in the success of the Cairngorms Connect programme. One of the biggest challenges to forest regeneration is the overpopulation of deer, which prevents young saplings from maturing. While Red and Roe Deer are native to Scotland, the absence of natural predators has led to unsustainable numbers, negatively impacting both the deer and the landscape.
To address this, Cairngorms Connect partners have implemented effective deer management strategies, resulting in a noticeable increase in young trees at the forest edges and a gradual expansion of native woodlands. Jeremy highlighted that, beyond ecological benefits, this approach also provides a sustainable source of venison, which is sold locally and affordably, and which serves to bring local folks together over shared meals - encouraging new audiences to connect with conservation efforts in their local environment. More information can be found in this paper.
Jeremy Roberts, RSPB Cairngorms Connect Programme Manager, describing their collaborative approach to restoring woodland in Scotland’s Eastern Highlands. Credit: Genevieve Stephens/RSPB.
Kazakh Steppe ProgrammeRepresenting another large landscape-scale initiative, Adam presented on the work of my team, the RSPB Kazakh Steppe Programme, which has been working in Kazakhstan alongside national and international partners since 2006 through the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative. Adam’s presentation focused on our efforts in west Kazakhstan, where we’ve been developing restoration plans for a 5-million-hectare landscape thanks to funding from the Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme. The landscape encompasses a large State Protected Area, hunting areas, villages, pastoral grazing lands, and wetlands. It also includes the migration route of the world’s largest Saiga Antelope population, and is home to other steppe species, such as ground squirrels, vipers, and eagles.
Following long-term efforts by Altyn Dala partners, Saiga Antelope populations have increased from less than 50,000 in the early 2000’s, to over 2.83 million today. While this represents an unparalleled global success in species recovery, the growing Saiga population in west Kazakhstan is expanding into important pastoral areas, trampling hay fields and competing with livestock over scarce water resources.
Adam’s presentation outlined our approach to managing these challenges, which focuses on engaging stakeholders at local, regional, and national levels to find solutions that work for people and nature and better bridge lived experience with national policy.
Locally, we’ve worked with farmers, government, and Protected Area staff through participatory mapping to identify conflict hotspots and drivers. We learnt that increasing water scarcity, deteriorating wells and channels, rising livestock numbers, and shrinking pasture availability are all exacerbating the challenges faced by pastoralists, while also presenting clear solutions, such as the co-development of pasture plans designed to improve landscape connectivity to enable wildlife to move more freely, while enhancing resilience for people and nature.
Regionally, we’re analysing 30 years of land-use and land-cover changes to anticipate future challenges and develop sustainable restoration plans which balance the needs of rural economies and ecosystem functionality.
At the national level, under the Convention on Migratory Species, we co-developed a new National Strategy for the Conservation and Management of Saiga Antelope alongside a consortium of Kazakh and international experts. This strategy includes objectives like researching Saiga distribution and engaging local communities to balance diverse interests across the species’ range.
Adam Devenish, RSPB Conservation Scientist, exhibiting the 5-million-hectare landscape in west Kazakhstan for which RSPB and partners are developing restoration plans, thanks to funding from ELSP. Credit: Genevieve Stephens/RSPB.
River GuardiansBeyond the RSPB, a talk which really inspired me was by Kaisu Mustonen from Finland, who described how she and her team at Snowchange Cooperative are conserving the remote expanse of Eastern Finland’s Koitajoki Watershed through a pioneering ‘River Guardian Programme’, which is harnessing traditional ecological knowledge through the appointment of environmental stewards. To date, approximately 20 River Guardians, ranging in age from 10 to 65, have been engaged in diverse monitoring activities, from tracking water quality and wildlife to documenting oral histories and family archives. Each Guardian contributes to a monthly report, collectively building knowledge of the river ecosystem. Many also support restoration activities across the Koitajoki basin, such as building dams to restore the natural state of peatlands. Their efforts not only enhance the ecological integrity of the watershed but also strengthen the cultural connection between the community and their environment, ensuring long-term stewardship of the Koitajoki basin.
The Altyn Dala partnership recently completed our new strategy, which prioritises people and communities as core pillars to fulfilling our vision. Objectives include a greater emphasis on participatory approaches, and Kaisu’s work with Snowchange Cooperative provides a beautiful example of how this can manifest in reality.
Trophic Rewilding: the role of large grazersIn addition to the shorter presentations, the conference featured several plenary sessions. One particularly insightful session was delivered by Jens-Christian Svenning from Aarhus University, Denmark, titled ‘Trophic Rewilding: A Restoration Approach in Emerging Novel Biosphere Conditions’. The session addressed the existential question, ‘How do we maintain a liveable biosphere in the future?’
Drawing on extensive research, Jens-Christian contended that restoring populations of large grazers is key to maintaining healthy ecosystems, as their direct interactions with vegetation are vital in maintaining soil diversity, enhancing seed dispersal, and in turn, providing suitable habitats for a wealth of other wildlife.
This aligns closely with our partnership’s work in Kazakhstan, where this summer our partners achieved a historic milestone: reintroducing wild horses to their ancestral steppe homeland. Earlier in October, they further advanced efforts by translocating a group of Kulan (Wild Ass) across the country to establish self-sustaining populations. Meanwhile, across the UK, RSPB reserves are home to a range of grazers, including Exmoor Ponies, Highland cattle, and Golden Guernsey Goats, selected to achieve conservation management objectives for each landscape.
Jens-Christian’s argument underpins the potential of these efforts, leaving me with a renewed sense of hope for the ecosystems we’re working to restore.
ReflectionsTo conclude, the conference provided space and time to step away from the detail-orientated nature of day-to-day work and reflect on the ‘bigger picture’: what social skills are key to conservation success? How can you meaningfully engage and work with local people? What role do large grazers play in future scenarios, and according to what evidence?
It was also an opportunity to connect in-person with RSPB colleagues across Europe, from whom I have plenty to learn. Jeremy’s presentation on the sustainable use of deer in Scotland has implications for our work with Saiga in Kazakhstan, while Joelene’s overview of the Collaborative Behaviour and Competency Tool prompted me to reflect, in a new way, on how I can be a better colleague and conservationist.
AcknowledgementsThe Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme generously supports all the RSPB initiatives mentioned in this blog, as well as the River Guardian Programme in Finland. Our conservation efforts in Kazakhstan are led in collaboration with the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan, with Frankfurt Zoological Society playing a key role in the equids work referenced in the blog.
Continue reading• Working towards human-wildlife coexistence in the golden grasslands of Kazakhstan: home to the world’s largest Saiga Antelope population• Identifying soil fungi across Kazakhstan’s grasslands, mountains and deserts• Behind the scenes of an extraordinary expedition to the land of the Saiga Antelope
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