Boothby Wildland

Key Points

• A structured stakeholder analysis helped Nattergal identify who to engage, how best to approach them, and where potential risks or opportunities lay in early scoping.
• Community workshops and the creation of a Local Community Group allowed local stakeholders to help shape outcomes and co-design elements of the project (e.g., footpath routes).
• Professional stakeholders and local residents had different priorities (strategic vs. site-level details), so separating these groups for targeted discussion improved relevance and productivity.
• Some farmers and local residents expressed concerns about land-use changes, beavers, and fencing. Regular updates and tailored consultations helped dispel myths and reduce opposition, offering further co-design opportunities.
• Nattergal has increased public access by one-third (measured by km of paths installed). It also offers volunteering opportunities, data-sharing via a Boothby Wildmap, and annual events to demonstrate connection with the local community and reinforce support.
• Much of Boothby’s community engagement costs – including capital works dedicated Communities and Volunteer Co-ordinator and future Education Officer are  funded through its Landscape Recovery (LR) agreement.

 

Defining the Approach

As Nattergal’s first site, the team decided to invest more time in developing guiding principles and in-house expertise on community engagement.

In 2023, Nattergal commissioned an academic review, funded by the Development Phase of Landscape Recovery (LR)  and led by the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI), to summarise best practice for community engagement in landscape-scale projects. The authors worked with the Nattergal team over three months to define what this would look like for Boothby.

The key findings are shared in ’The Nattergal Report on Stakeholder Engagement Best Practice for Landscape-scale Nature Recovery Projects’, published in 2023. The report forms the basis of Nattergal’s Ten-Point Approach that was published in 2024 with  practical anecdotes from Boothby’s applied community engagement work. The Ten-Point Approach also references a Spectrum of Engagement (see Figure 1), which Nattergal uses to guide its thinking on the types of community engagement that may be applied.

Figure 1: International Association for Public Participation (IAP2). Spectrum of Public Participation, provided with examples from Boothby’s community engagement

Since 2023, community engagement has required dedicated capacity, which Lorienne Whittle, Rewilding Landscapes Manager, acknowledges is a common barrier for project developers aiming to engage local people. Nattergal hired a Communities and Volunteer Co-ordinator as its first Boothby specific employee in 2022 to provide local communities with a point of contact.

 

Identifying Community Stakeholders

In 2023, Nattergal partnered with Louise Arkles, an MPhil student at the University of Cambridge, to complete an independent stakeholder analysis of Boothby. Arkles worked alongside the Nattergal team as they made initial contact with local communities (see Initial Engagement below).

Over three months, Arkles attended community events, engaged face-to-face with local people, and undertook surveys and interviews. Key outputs of this exercise included:

• a summary of census data,
• an initial map of actual and potential stakeholders (summarised in Figure 2),
• an iterative spreadsheet of engaged stakeholders, and
• an Impact-Influence Matrix of all stakeholders.

Whittle states “the stakeholder analysis helped us identify groups of people and individuals who had an existing interest in, or relationship with, the land. We could then more easily work out the best way to work with these stakeholders, garnering input into developing plans and having a route to communicate.”

Figure 2: An early stakeholder mapping exercise undertaken for Boothby

 

Initial Engagement

Initial engagement began in earnest with a series of town hall events, on various days and times to increase accessibility. Nattergal’s primary aim was to introduce itself to local communities and talk about its initial plans– what Nattergal categorises as ‘Inform’ and ‘Consult’ on its Spectrum (see Figure 1). It also held online meetings and started to build an online presence through social media and periodic newsletters that the team promoted.

Whittle says it has also been important to have an open-door policy that allows for less structured interactions: “We find this friendly, face to face approach really works. For example, one day a local gentleman popped in to ask about the deer fencing. We had a coffee and he left assured about our tender process, but he also gave his daughter’s contact details to ask about running a wildlife photography course here!”

As the team expected, some members of the community have had concerns about Boothby’s plans.

Nattergal spent more time speaking with local farmers. Some of these farmers were (and remain) sceptical about both the cessation of agricultural production and the nature market components of the project. This is partly driven by nature markets’ nascency, but also traditional viewpoint on the use of land. Nattergal has communicated key factors, such as the history of farm outputs off Boothby’s Grade 3 variable soils,  and the signing of a Section 106 with the local District Council, legally securing the land for long-term nature recovery.

Some community members have communicated that they found the lack of a fixed plan from the outset to be unsettling – despite this being an intentional decision to allow for co-design (see below). The Nattergal team learned the importance of ongoing communication and regular updates as elements of its plans for Boothby have evolved.

Direct costs at this stage, such as village hall hiring fees, were minimal.

 

Enabling Co-design

After initial engagement, Nattergal hosted community workshops at Boothby to encourage a more co-design approach. Held in September 2023 these were attended by over 50 local community members.

The workshop included a mapping exercise identifying different stakeholders current use and future vision for the land, and an activity where attendees were asked to visualise their desired outcomes from Boothby, in the form of a local newspaper’s front cover in 2073. The workshops also included a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis, which identified factors important to the community that could be discussed and monitored, and helped recognise further risks and misconceptions of the project.

The workshop outputs helped to inform parts of Boothby’s developing site plans, for example specific routes for future permissive paths and the desire for a more accessible path. These fed into the Site Access plan developed for Landscape Recovery, which includes a long section of new bridleway on the edge of the Wildland. This was requested by local community members due to a much shorter section of existing Public Bridleway being alongside a busy road. Including a longer section of permissive bridlepath connects to further paths within and outside of the Boothby landholding, and will allow horse riders to be outside of the core Wildland area, which will in time have free roaming pigs, ponies and cattle. An accessible path has been included in plans for a hub area, which includes a community orchard, a car park and infrastructure for visiting schools. These were all elements suggested by the community at this co-design workshop.

Figure 3: Workshops were well attended by local community members and included a range of activities to garner input

An important part of ongoing engagement is the establishment on a  Local Community Group. These quarterly meetings and constant open communication line allows for the two way flow of information and questions.

 

Beaver Consultations

After much expert consultation, restoration of the West Glen river was planned in two phases – some mechanical intervention followed by the introduction of beavers to a 200ha enclosure along a large section of the river. Beaver introductions require a licence from Natural England, which itself requires a demonstration of stakeholder engagement.

The Nattergal team held three consultation sessions in early 2024 to present proposals, answer questions and  gather feedback. This included an in-person meeting at the local Village Hall, a live online session, and a walk & talk at the Boothby site. Conversations with local people before the event gave Nattergal a sense of the level of local knowledge on Beavers and likely reactions to their reintroduction.

The consultations were attended by over 80 local stakeholders. Addressing misconceptions about Beavers was a key part of the events, assuring that they would not present a danger to people, negatively impact fish populations, or damage infrastructure. The team also advocated for the benefits of Beaver reintroduction in the context of Nattergal’s broader river restoration and rewilding plans. From these events, Nattergal reviewed the feedback, committed to ongoing conversations and conducted elements of further co-design in respect to the fencing.

Overall, the consultation received overwhelmingly positive support, and evidence of this was included in the application to Natural England for Boothby’s enclosed beaver release. After further local consultation on the design of the fencing for the area, as of September 2025, Nattergal has completed the infrastructure work and aims to reintroduce beavers in late 2025/ early 2026.

Figure 4. Boothby Ecologist Ranger, Lloyd Park, presenting at the consultation – February 2024

 

Figure 5. Habitat creation and restoration plans map of Boothby Wildland

 

Ongoing Engagement and Benefits Sharing

Nattergal maintains its open-door approach, social media presence and various methods of communication with the local community, such as via the Community group and updates in neighbouring village magazines. It also offers weekly volunteering opportunities, free local community walks and an annual Nature Day on-site that includes guided walks, talks and community stalls.

A major community benefit from Boothby is increased public access. Access across the site is being increased from around 15km to over 21km of footpaths and bridlepaths. All plans have been co-designed with the local community, reflecting requests for extended paths, linking access, considerations on future livestock, and neighbours’ privacy. Nattergal plans to  install accessible dipping ponds and platforms for school groups on educational visits. These are  being  financed using Boothby’s LR funding.

Nattergal shares selected data from Boothby via a public WildMap – an online map that depicts the site’s ecological data and features, encouraging public awareness. Some data is not shared due to species protection and commercial sensitivity concerns. However, the WildMap also encourages citizen science opportunities. For example, there are over 20 fixed-point photography posts across the site that have a QR code linked to an app, which allows anyone to share images of a specific landscape alignment and upload it to Nattergal’s database and the WildMap.

Figure 6. Map of Boothby Wildland on WildMap

Boothby is also one of the original pilot projects for the Community Inclusion Standard, which is a UK Standard that was led by the Nature Finance Certification Alliance (NFCA), funded by the Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS). As the Standard is operationalised, Nattergal expects its community engagement effort to be recognised within the new BSI Flex formalised framework, that provides structure to project developers and confidence in the wider market.

 

Sources

1. ’The Nattergal Report on Stakeholder Engagement Best Practice for Landscape-scale Nature Recovery Projects‘
2. https://www.nattergal.com/blog/stakeholder-engagement-best-practice-nattergals-ten-point-approach
3. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/stakeholder-engagement-for-landscape-scale-recovery/id1679000834?i=1000674970064

 

Banner Image: Nattergal/Jonathan Perugia