Inspiring Action
Photo: Natela Grigalashvili
Sharing stories and evidence
The Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme seeks to inspire action for restoration at scale, catalysing uptake and replication of successful models. To do this, we share stories from our projects that connect with diverse audiences, rekindling hope and belief in positive environmental change. Additionally, we communicate the evidence generated by projects to demonstrate to key stakeholders that large-scale restoration can reverse landscape and seascape degradation, aiming to encourage investment and policy support for restoration initiatives. Furthermore, we share the knowledge, models, data, and best practices developed by our projects through open-access formats to assist other landscape and seascape restoration projects. Peer-reviewed publications contribute to building the programme’s reputation as a credible source of scientific knowledge, supporting our mission of promoting large-scale restoration.
Culture and art
The arts and cultural practice are a powerful means of reawakening our sense of the familiar, connecting to the past, and exploring possible futures. They play a pivotal role in addressing environmental challenges and are a compelling route into understanding how people are connected to landscape. The arts bring new perspectives into the cultural renewal implicit in restoration, and to the relationships people have with their surroundings. These experiences can improve our understanding of the history between people and place, about what the land means, why both nature and culture have been eroded and lost, and why restoration is underway.
The Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme supports artist residencies in the restoration landscapes and seascapes we fund. Through collaborative, participatory arts practice, the residencies engage local communities and celebrate the distinctiveness of the landscape. Environments rich in nature and culture are deeply linked to community and individual well-being, and the arts have a key role in instilling such connections. Stories, and the ways they are told, are a foundation for understanding the challenges people face living in landscapes threatened by change as well as the hopes, ambitions and opportunities that come with landscape restoration.
Carpathian Mountains Artist Residency
Romanian born music producer and DJ Nico de Transilvania grew up close to the forests of the Carpathian Mountains. Through collaborating with the local communities Nico explored how the biodiversity of these mountains is interconnected with ancient traditions, local instruments and folk songs intrinsically linked to environmental preservation. Trips in the forests with the local mayor to record sounds of wildlife, as well as researching, meeting and recording musicians in the local villages, whose traditional music centres around human connections with natural cycles, have informed Nico’s project. Combining recordings of traditional Romanian songs and forest soundscapes with electronic sounds, showcases the interconnections between nature and people whilst also bridging multiple generations.The music shares the joy and importance of restoring the forests and protects the traditions in the Carpathian Mountains through preserving these ancient songs. These come together as a multi-media performance called ‘I N T E R B E I N G’, featuring music, film, photography and storytelling and has been performed to a wide audience at Făgăraș Fest, a new sustainable outdoor festival organised by the Carpathia project team.