Conservation in transformation: Engaging diverse knowledges and power relations in UK nature conservation

The Inter-governmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Transformative Change Assessment Summary for Policy Makers argues that foregrounding plurality and inclusion can help guide processes of transformative change for social-ecological justice. Here, one aspect of plurality and inclusion is engagement with, and valuing of, diverse knowledge systems. Within the context of nature conservation, this could not only transform conservation itself but also enable conservation to enact transformative change: a fundamental, system-wide reconfigurations of human-nature interactions. Existing frameworks e.g. Tengö (2014, 2017) attempt to reconcile plural knowledges in a conservation context but are often formulated by academics and do not engage with how power relations are interwoven with, and emerge from, such processes in practice. Thus, this research asks what practices could enable UK nature conservation to better engage with diverse forms of evidence and varied knowledge systems while engaging with power relations? This is explored using a Participatory Action Research approach with a major UK conservation programme while also journeying towards decoloniality. Conversations, interviews, observations and reflective journalling fed into a Forum Theatre workshop undertaken collaboratively with Dr Eirini Saratsi (Natural England) and Professor Erika Hughes (University of the Arts London). Preliminary analysis shows how a web of values, dimensions of context and frames of power influence what and how diverse knowledges are engaged. Dimensions of context include structural, social, and embodied contexts; frames of power refer to different philosophical understandings of power as per Moon (2025). Cultivating greater awareness and understanding of this web in which conservation practitioners and their partners operate, as well as increased reflexivity of ones own values and context, could facilitate intentional actions that value and engage with plural knowledges. Additionally, the analysis shows that relational, process-oriented working practices must be foregrounded to enable meaningful dialogue between knowledges, epistemic communities and so, conservation partners. These shifts would enable nature conservation to embody the transformative changes needed for socio-environmental justice.