This research addresses urgent questions faced by Scottish Forestry, alongside forestry agencies across the rest of the UK, Europe and internationally, who want to know how they can respond positively to global challenges for sustainability and human health while satisfying demands for more tree cover. In addition, public health policy-makers and planners, land managers, spatial planners and land development agencies and third sector organisations want to know how to invest scarce resources in ways that maximise benefits for people as well as planet. So our focus is on urban forestry and how to provide better evidence of the contributions it can make to human wellbeing, child development and health equity. Our increasingly urban population is experiencing rising levels of mental illness and non-communicable disease; in addition, there is concern about the long-term effects of urban living on the kinds of environments children experience. There is evidence that access to natural environments such as woodlands can offer health benefits, especially in relation to mental wellbeing, and support healthy child development. In addition, it appears that more socially disadvantaged people may gain most from improved opportunities to visit and enjoy urban forests and other natural environments. We plan to provide evidence on the effectiveness of practical ways in which forestry can be used to benefit such populations. Our study examines whether existing programmes for urban forestry, such as Scottish Forestry's (formerly known as Forestry Commission Scotland) Woods In and Around Towns (WIAT) programme, are effective in their aims of improving community wellbeing and quality of life by bringing neglected urban woodland near deprived urban communities into active management and working with local people to help them use their local woodland. We are taking advantage of new opportunities to link existing population, health and child development data for a large number of people, together with data on WIAT projects that have been undertaken near where these people live at any point in a ten year period (2005-2015). This will be done in a secure and ethically approved manner so that there is no risk of individuals or their personal data being identifiable. It is an exciting opportunity because of the high quality data available across a representative sample of Scotland's population; for the first time we can link information such as prescriptions data for anti-depressants, or child gross and fine motor skills development, with data on the location, cost, timing and extent of a national urban forestry programme. The results will indicate whether, for example, the extent of new footpaths and improved forest entrances, alongside activities to bring children and adults into the forest, makes a difference to health and child development outcomes for people living near the urban forest. We'll look at whether benefits from WIAT are experienced only by those living very close to the forest, how long it takes for any benefits to appear after a WIAT project is completed, whether benefits are sustained and whether there are differences in benefit according to people's age, gender, or socio-economic status. Our findings will be published not only in academic journals but also in ways that are most helpful for different stakeholders, from forest and land managers and environmental agencies to health and child development policymakers. We will be working closely with Scottish Forestry and other public agencies across the UK and Europe to find the best ways of doing this. We'll also make our findings accessible to local communities and the wider public. Ultimately, we hope that urban communities will benefit from better evidence as to how government departments and public and private agencies can support people's access to urban forests to support their, and their children's, wellbeing and quality of life.

Although agroforestry (integrating trees or shrubs on pasture or crop farmland) has great potential to provide ecosystem services and address multiple climate change challenges, it is not widely practiced in the UK. Strategic planning and successful implementation require more knowledge on achieving optimal environmental benefits, balanced with information of the associated socio-economic, cultural and policy incentives, barriers, and challenges to increasing agroforestry. Bringing together a strong multidisciplinary team of social and environmental scientists with partners who are practitioners and stakeholders in woodland and agricultural organisations, the FARM TREE project addresses these needs by exploring which planting scenarios might work best under different combinations of environmental and socio-economic conditions. Hereby, we will evaluate planting strategies (e.g., regional or landscape priority areas or species), as well as farm level planting designs (species and spatial organisation of planting) within the context of different strategies. Providing knowledge on which planting scenarios realistically work best where, combined with tools and pathways on how to achieve this will: (1) improve farmer decision making, (2) aid the development of better targeted and more flexible policies and grant schemes, and (3) ultimately lower barriers for tree expansion on farmland. We take a holistic approach to benefits and inherent trade-offs and consider that tree planting decisions are subject to diverse factors, from the personal to the policy level; but also focus in on carbon sequestration and water use solutions, alongside wider environmental benefits. We will provide an interactive web-based decision support tool to guide tree expansion on farmland; and identify how public policies (regulations, grant schemes) and market-based measures interact to incentivise (or deter) planting. The research will be articulated around three integrated work packages (WP). In WP1, we will collate socio-economic incentives and barriers from the land manager perspective, building on existing UK initiatives and farmer networks of project partners in agroforestry. Using participatory research methods, WP1 will identify farm level opportunities and constraints to integrate trees using designs that fit well into farming systems. At the national level, we will focus on insights relating to strategic policies that create opportunities for agroforestry expansion. WP2 will investigate the spatial and temporal effects of agroforestry strategies and designs on water and carbon cycling at the national/landscape and farm scale, while also considering soil health and biodiversity. For diverse landscape and farm settings, it will identify planting scenarios that deliver optimal ecosystem services, now and under future scenarios. This will be achieved via integrated ecohydrological and carbon modelling and build on previous woodland landscape capability mapping for ecosystem services and data from demonstrator farms. Integrating outcomes from WP1 and WP3, it will also deliver a set of scenarios that consider socio-economic constraints alongside the environmental benefits. WP1 and WP2 are fully integrated via WP3, which involves the iterative development of viable tree planting scenarios on farms that consider socio-economic and environmental aspects within UK landscapes. Co- developed with project partners and stakeholders, decision support tools (interactive website for farmers; policy briefings; and recommendations for long term farmer-led innovation monitoring labs) form key outputs.

"Sustainable food production" - the process by which we feed the ever-growing world population - is at the top of every agenda. To deliver sustainable food production, it is essential that livestock live in excellent conditions and are healthy throughout their lives. Gastrointestinal parasitism is a direct challenge to this due to negative consequences on animal health and welfare and on the environment. In addition, parasitic disease directly results in a 30% increase in greenhouse gas emissions, which exacerbates climate change and so also threatens food production. Drugs are often used to treat parasitic disease, but resistance to the drugs that kill these types of parasites is now widespread throughout the world, with a prevalence of nearly 100% in many countries. This leads to worldwide costs for food soaring by billions of pounds. In other words, the continuous use of drugs in livestock over the last 60 years has been positive in that it has increased livestock productivity and profitability, but the positive effects of the current generation of drugs (known as anthelmintics) is under threat due to global challenges, including antimicrobial resistance, climate change and maintenance of biodiversity. This project therefore directly addresses the impact that parasitism has on sustainable food production. It does this by using a low-value by-product for the UK's forestry industry and by incorporating this by-product into a next generation natural dietary supplement for livestock. Natural compounds extracted from plants (often called plant secondary metabolites (PSM)), are known to disrupt the life cycle of parasitic nematodes both in the animal and in the environment. PSM can therefore act as anthelmintics, controlling the disease these parasites cause. However, using a single pure PSM is expensive. Attention has therefore turned to PSM-rich extracts that contain a complex mixture of PSM as this is cheaper. However, this approach is hampered by large variations in the PSM content. Variability in PSM-content across different extracts leads to irreproducible biological activity. Whilst studies have demonstrated the anthelminitic effects of individual PSMs and/or plant extracts, the use of PSM-rich extracts is still understudied. There are insufficient reports on the effect on biological activity of combinations of PSMs or the contributions of individual PSM. Repeatable production of extracts (and thus consistent biological activity) requires a more detailed understanding of both the chemistry contained within PSM-extracts and the biological interactions of the active compounds in PSM-extracts with the parasites. Tree bark is particularly rich in antiparasitic PSM and it is very likely that the UK forestry industry creates enough bark waste to treat the UK livestock population, so long as the PSM-extract is administered at key times of parasite susceptibility. This project therefore brings together the forestry, livestock and bioprocessing industries with academic experts in parasitology, chemical biology, analytical and statistical analysis to understand the full extent of the interaction of the parasites with the tree bark extracts. In doing so, it will identify, and isolate compounds present in the bark extracts that demonstrate anthelmintic activity. This will enable the creation of an "Activity Index" - a tool to predict the anthelmintic activity of any future bark extract. This Activity Index will subsequently guide the characterisation of future large scale bark extracts, predicting their anthelmintic potential and optimise their inclusion in parasite control strategies. To achieve this, we will identify and test compounds for their presence in bark extracts and their anthelmintic activity. We will select potentially bioactive compounds on literature reports, preliminary evidence already available to us from previous work and novel work described in this proposal.

Human activities are directly and indirectly depleting the World's natural resources. At the same time, we rely on these resources for our livelihoods and well-being. Urgent action is thus needed to better manage our impact on the natural world. A key factor driving these negative impacts is that the decisions that people, businesses and governments make tend to be based on a limited set of nature's values that tend to be linked to economic markets. In biodiversity economics, these values are called 'instrumental' values: the predominantly monetary benefits of goods and services people obtain from nature. However, the global assessment on the value of nature has identified several other 'non-instrumental' value concepts, which include: relational values (the value we have for our relationships with nature); transcendental values (our overarching principles and life goals); shared values (collective values that expressed by groups, communities and cultures); and intrinsic values (values for nature independent of human welfare). NAVIGATE aims to enhance our understanding of these non-instrumental value concepts and explore how these values might be better integrated into economic thinking and policy decisions. Our research will undertake detailed reviews of the 'non-instrumental' value concepts. We will draw on a range of scientific perspectives to provide greater clarity on definitions of these value concepts, how they might be measured (using both monetary and other indicators) and how they might best be integrated into policy and business decisions. We will also ask decision makers whether they currently consider these values, and if not, how they think they could incorporate them. Based on the above, we will develop methods for assessing these values and feeding them into policies. To test our ideas, we will apply our methods to four case studies that will value the non-instrumental values associated with forests and woodlands. Our case studies include: the UK national forest; a new woodland that has recently been planted in Wales to store carbon, reduce flooding and promote outdoor recreation; urban woodland in the City of Helsinki, Finland; and conservation woodlands in Tanzania that provide timber products to the UK market. With the help of local stakeholders and policy makers, we will explore options to feed our findings relating to the value of our case study forests / woodland into actual policy decisions, through a range of existing and new approaches, such as cost-benefit analysis, natural capital accounting and deliberative democratic valuations. Conventional economic measures tend to only consider the instrumental values of nature, but it has been argued that better decisions could be made for our planet if the policies also account for a wider range of values including non-instrumental values, expressed in both monetary and non-monetary terms. The outputs from our research will include: a series of scientific papers and policy guidance documents for embedding non-instrumental values into decisions. We will also produce a video and infographics to explain the implications of our research to the public.

Aonachadh (ún`-ach-A) is gaelic for coming together, for two faces of a mountain that meet to form a uniting ridge. Building on and expanding an existing network of over 280+ organisations, we will bring together a wide range of stakeholders interested in investable biodiversity uplift projects. We will develop methods for creating standardised, accessible, and verifiable data, metrics and tools for voluntary biodiversity markets, and co-create research questions and a programme of work that can lead to a common framework for data gathering and business models and community engagement methods acceptable to supply-side projects as well as demand side investors. Research activity will enable us to come together in workshops and working groups to collaboratively co-create research questions, and then share, discuss and learn from lessons emerging from biodiversity uplift pilot projects engaging with voluntary markets in Scotland. Our research network - of established and emerging projects, financiers and policy makers - will contribute to NERC's Nature Positive Future programme from the unique context of Scotland, which is experiencing unprecedented increases in land values alongside a land reform agenda that seeks to deliver benefits from biodiversity markets for local communities. Scotland's place-based approach to ecosystem market development provides a unique opportunity to understand interactions between biodiversity, finance and society and what this means for environmental and economic resilience. Recent and ongoing work from the core team, and established connections with UK stakeholders and channel partners Ecosystems Knowledge Network and the Green Finance Institute, means we can initiate a quick start for more results and impact.