Exploring the Role of Values, Landscapes and Relationships for Social-Ecological Restoration: Insights from a Real-World Laboratory for Grassland Restoration in Germany

Human activities cause the ongoing decline of biodiversity. Especially threatened are grassland ecosystems, although they have thrived for millennia under human influence as part of cultural landscapes in Central Europe. Restoring species-rich grassland is perceived beneficial to halting and reversing unfavorable biodiversity trajectories in European cultural landscapes. To advance approaches that take human action into account for biodiversity research, social-ecological systems thinking contributed to the emergence of social-ecological restoration. Investigating the role of diverse values of nature, cultivating stewardship efforts, and fostering human-nature relationships is at the forefront of social-ecological systems research. Transdisciplinary research, especially real-world laboratories (RwLs), constitutes promising characteristics for combining research from different disciplines and conducting research with local actors on issues of societal relevance. While the prospect of transdisciplinary social-ecological restoration is promising, exploring the processes and effects of and the implications for dealing with diverse values, cultivating stewardship and understanding people’s relationships with nature remain a novel research endeavor. Drawing on a real-world laboratory for social-ecological grassland restoration, I aim to (i) investigate how multi-layered values, knowledge of, and visions for grassland restoration can support engagement in a social-ecological restoration project; (ii) better understand how people’s perceptions of grassland and biodiversity in a social-ecological restoration project inform engagement and stewardship; and (iii) explore the influences of social-ecological restoration interventions on participants’ perspectives regarding future generations as well as their personal, social, and environmental relationships to leverage transformative change. This cumulative dissertation consists of four chapters. Chapter I synthesizes the insights of Chapters II – IV, which address the research aims respectively (i – iii). Chapter II reveals value-based social-ecological restoration perspectives to embrace nuance layers for inclusive engagement. Chapter III discusses the relevance for addressing restoration at a landscape level as well as building on existing human-nature relationships in cultural landscapes to foster engagement and overcoming knowledge barriers to cultivate stewardship. Chapter IV depicts the potential of social-ecological restoration for transformative change by fostering personal reflections, connecting like-minded people, and increasing environmental awareness. Moreover, the relevance of future perspectives to safeguard stewardship efforts is discussed. This dissertation synthesizes that the interconnectedness of values, landscapes, and relationships provide significant relevance of social-ecological restoration and depict potential for leveraging transformative change. Expanding social-ecological restoration to account for means of amplifying initiatives could advance social-ecological restoration to not only contribute to bending the curve for biodiversity loss but moreover paving a way forward towards regenerative practices.