Bridging the gap between people and nature: the need for biocultural approaches to restoration
Ecological restoration is booming worldwide as a climate solution. It is often presented as a straightforward fix for environmental damage—but it’s not that simple. Dr Antonio Uzal – Associate Professor of Conservation Biology in NTU’s School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences – discusses how dominant Western technical and science-driven approaches could be unintentionally reinforcing power imbalances and marginalising local and indigenous knowledge.
By Dr Antonio Uzal | Published on 29 June 2026
Categories: Press office; Research; School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences;
Worldwide landscapes are changing at an unprecedented pace. Forests are cleared, wetlands drained, and ecosystems degraded by decades of human activity and unsustainable extraction.
In response, a growing global movement is focused on ecological restoration, the process of helping damaged ecosystems recover so they can once again support wildlife, store carbon, regulate water, and benefit people.
Ecological restoration can involve planting trees in deforested areas, restoring rivers to their natural flow, or reintroducing species that have been lost. It is a crucial tool for tackling major global challenges, including biodiversity loss and climate change.
However, restoration is not just a technical task. In practice, restoring ecosystems is often complex, messy, and deeply human.
Decisions about what to restore, how to restore it, and who benefits are shaped by social, cultural, and political factors. Yet many restoration projects still treat the process as neutral, technical “fixes” rooted in Western scientific paradigms, focusing on ecological outcomes while overlooking the people who live in and depend on these landscapes.
This is one of the central challenges in ecological restoration today.
Three key ideas behind biocultural restoration
Efforts are often driven by external experts, institutions, or funding priorities, which can unintentionally sideline local communities. As a result, projects may fail to reflect local values, reinforce existing inequalities, or struggle to deliver long-term success.
Our recent paper, published in People and Nature, addresses this gap. The research is the result of an international collaboration involving academics and practitioners from three continents and five countries, including four current and former researchers from Nottingham Trent University. The work emerged from discussions at a workshop that took place in the Maasai Mara in June 2024, funded by NTU’s International Partnership Funding.
In the paper, we argue that ecological restoration should be understood not just as an ecological process, but as a social and political one. To move forward, we propose a framework for what we call ‘biocultural restoration’.
This approach goes beyond simply involving local communities in projects. Instead, explicitly integrating cultural meanings, diverse knowledge systems, and power dynamics into every stage of restoration planning and governance.
Biocultural restoration is built on three key ideas. First, it draws on political ecology, which helps us understand how power dynamics influence environmental decisions. This means recognising that some voices are often prioritised over others, typically those driven by technocratic or market-driven “repair-mode” interventions, and working to address those imbalances.
Second, it incorporates landscape biographies. These are long-term perspectives on how landscapes have been shaped by interactions between people and nature over time. By understanding this history, restoration efforts can avoid perpetuating past injustices or overlooking important cultural connections to the land.
Third, the framework emphasises the importance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), the deep, place-based knowledge held by indigenous peoples and local communities. This knowledge can offer valuable insights into how ecosystems function and how we can decolonise restoration practices. A particularly powerful concept within this approach is that of cultural keystone species. These are species that hold significant cultural value to local communities, and whose restoration can support both biodiversity and cultural identity.
Creating ecologically healthy and socially just landscapes
Together, these elements shift the role of scientists and institutions. Rather than acting solely as decision-makers, we can become collaborators and facilitators, working alongside communities to co-design restoration efforts.
This matters because successful restoration is not just about planting more trees or increasing species numbers. It is about creating landscapes that are ecologically healthy and socially just, where people’s relationships with nature are recognised and respected.
As global investment in ecological restoration continues to grow, now is the time to rethink how we approach it. Through international collaboration, such as that fostered by the International Partnership Fund, and by working closely with communities on the ground, we can build restoration projects that truly foster long-term ecological integrity and social justice.