Alison Dyke

Alison is a political ecologist with over 25 years experience working on nature-society relations across a broad range of environmental subject areas. She is interested in how conceptualisations of nature and the environment impact governance, and how this in turn can better reflect these relationships to deliver an environment that meets the needs of humans and non-humans.

A recent theme in research projects in relational value. Projects included a long running collaboration with Forest Research to investigate how relational values impact on the management of trees at risk of pests and diseases. The project has developed a metric to measure how important different types of value related to trees are to urban dwellers. A large UK project investigated how the social and cultural values that local people associate with urban trees can be incorporated in decision making, resulting in a tool and online training course that local authorities can use to plan their treescape.

A second strand of work relates to environmental justice, whether this is ensuring that local people are are to participate effectively in decision making (Water Beyond Boundaries); how effectively nature’s rights legislation is being implemented (Rights of Rivers in Practice); using citizen science as a route to greater racial diversity in the UK environment science workforce (CAREERS) or giving legitimacy to the expert knowledge held by Fishers in decision making (Addressing environmental injustices through transdisciplinary science and technology).