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A people's plan for nature | WWF
Commissioning
The three UK-based charities the WWF, the RSPB and National Trust commissioned both a National Conversation and the People’s Assembly for Nature.
Remit
The People’s Assembly for Nature is the second leg of the development of The People's Plan for Nature, a comprehensive plan to both preserve and restore nature across the UK. The task for the Assembly was to refine the more than 30.000 responses from the National Conversation as well as develop recommendations for preservation and restoration of nature in the UK ranging from: vision and leadership, regulation and implementation; nature-friendly farming; food production and consumption; marine protection for coastal waters; waterway and catchment management; local access to nature; and using evidence effectively.
Commitment to Respond
WWF committed to respond to the outputs of the Assembly and has since published a response to the assembly.
Governance
An independent advisory group was set up to provide an unbiased expert perspective on the evidence and ensure that the materials was accessible. The advisory group consisting of 18 people reviewed the structure and content of all sessions to ensure that they offered as comprehensive an introduction to the topics as was possible given the allotted 36 hours for deliberation, and that different perspectives were included. This included ensuring that a diversity of views and voices was heard in the process.
Delivery Bodies
Involve was responsible for planning and facilitation. Sortition Foundation was responsible for recruitment of members.
Participant Recruitment
Recruitment was carried out by the Sortition Foundation. Recruitment for this assembly was conducted by sending some 33,000 introductory invitations to residents across the UK, chosen through democratic lottery. A total of 103 citizens participated in the assembly. Members were awarded a total £800 for their participation.
Duration
The People’s Assembly for Nature took place over four weekends between November 2022 and February 2023.
Structure
The assembly combined both in-person and online meetings. The meetings in the first and fourth weekends were held in-person while the meetings during the second and thirdweekends were held online.
During the first weekend, members were introduced to what a citizens’ assembly is, what to expect from the four weekends and what would happen with the People’s Plan for Nature because of their commitment to the project.
The second weekend enabled Assembly members to build a picture of the historical, current and potential future extent of the UK’s habitats and species, and how these interface with human activity.
The third weekend examined how we use land, fresh water and the sea to meet our basic needs, with a particular focus on food production. As in the previous weekend, assembly members deliberated over their top two insights or conclusions following each evidence session.
The final weekend was focused on deliberation and discussion, with no further input from experts.
Facilitation
The organisation Involve facilitated the assembly and offered participants specialised onboarding, materials in different formats, and support to attend events. Event design was carefully geared to ensure that different people’s experiences and voices were given equal weight, and that differences in power and privilege were, as far as possible, considered and rebalanced. The assembly combined a mix of plenary sessions with experts and breakouts for deliberations.
Evidence Base
Expert witnesses presented to the plenary and thematic groups.
Developing Recommendations
Priority areas for focus (called “topics”) were collectively identified during Weekends 2 and 3, after Assembly members heard evidence regarding the problems faced by nature in the UK and examples of work to protect and restore nature for the future. Members chose which topic they wanted to work on during Weekend 4. For each of the 28 topics, they drafted text calling for the action they felt would be needed to address the challenges. The draft Calls to Action were re-themed and organised under headlines by the facilitation team. These headlines, as well as ideas for overarching cross-cutting themes which summed up the key takeouts so far, were checked and verified with members. Members were then asked to vote for the “top ten” Calls to Action that they believe would have the most impact in achieving their vision of a UK where nature is protected and renewed.
Final Report
The 99-page report People’s Plan for Nature was published in March 2023.
Official Response
N/A
Oversight of Official Response
N/A
Impact
The WWF has vowed to work on incorporating as many of the recommendations in their work as possible. It is not clear whether the Plan has had implications for climate policy on the national level yet.
Evaluation
Internal evaluation conducted by Involve, who collected a range of statistical feedback andtestimonials from the members of the assembly. No external evaluation has been conducted.
Budget
The budget has not yet been made public.
