Thoughts from influential nature conservationists…
Sally Hawkins
Career Highlights
I am a researcher and educator and have built a career at the intersection of research, practice, and policy, driven by a passion for finding interdisciplinary solutions to complex environmental problems. My PhD and postdoctoral research at the University of Cumbria focused on rewilding as change management in landscape transformation and I created a “theory of change for rewilding”, reflected in a growing set of publications including the Routledge Handbook of Rewilding which I co-edited with Ian Convery, Steve Carver and Rene Beyers.
As part of the IUCN Commission for Ecosystem Management’s Rewilding Thematic Group, I am collaborating with a global, interdisciplinary team to develop rewilding guidelines, set to be presented at the World Conservation Congress in 2025. This work has been pivotal in transforming rewilding from a focus on ecological restoration to a holistic approach to large-scale environmental change. For instance, the IPBES has recently recognized rewilding as a nexus response to biodiversity, food, water, and health challenges.
My research is deeply informed by practical conservation work. In 2018, I co-founded the innovative, interdisciplinary NGO, the Lifescape Project, and served on its board for seven years. I played a key role in growing the organization from the ground up into a team of 13, leading transformative projects in conservation policy, rewilding, environmental law, and species reintroductions.
How do you define nature conservation?
My research has focused on the evolution of conservation from a more compositional approach – preserving species or habitats – to a more functional restoration approach – as is rewilding. Taking that further, a fully functioning ecosystem requires a supportive socio-political context. So, to me, “nature conservation” is a collaborative process to produce and maintain a sustainable and resilient social-ecological system.
What’s the good news about wildlife and nature at present?
What keeps me going is knowing there are passionate and highly capable people advocating for nature and wildlife, and increasingly they are working together to scale up impact. When I look at how quickly the Lifescape Project has grown, it is down to the drive and dedication of the staff who bring skills from a wide range of disciplines. The environment is becoming mainstream in law and economics policy contexts. It is no longer a problem for scientists alone to solve.
Beyond the obvious of habitat loss and species decline, what’s your greatest concern in UK nature conservation at present?
Short-term political and funding cycles, coupled with the underlying values of consumer capitalism, undermine the long-term planning and systemic changes needed for effective nature conservation. Priorities focus on individualism and instant gratification over sustainable environmental stewardship and community, creating barriers to addressing root causes of ecological degradation.
If you had a limited budget on nature conservation in Britain, what would you prioritise and why?
I would love to see lynx legally reintroduced into the UK and the establishment of a sustainable, free-ranging and expanding population. For me, it is less about their ecological impact (although of course we hope they will have a cascading effect on ecosystems) and more about overcoming a psychological barrier and showing British people that we’re perfectly capable of coexisting with lynx in our landscapes. It would be nice to get to a point where British people have a collective pride in our wilder landscapes, enough to want to contribute to their ongoing stewardship. I don’t think we’re that far off, having lynx back would be a huge leap towards that vision.
How do you feel about your input to the subject – what if anything has it achieved and would you do it differently if starting again today?
My main goal has been to advocate for the human dimensions in conservation and rewilding and I think I have contributed to the momentum that was created by many others before me. In the past, community collaboration or consultation was seen as a tick-box exercise in conservation, but I hope that my work has helped to show how complex and fundamental that particular work is. It is far more than overcoming social barriers but also about creating supportive social, political, and economic systems. A lot of research on human dimensions in conservation focuses on conflict, but I find that concentrating on common ground is far more effective and can bring people together – creating a vision for a rewilded future that we can all contribute to. A litmus test is how my students engage with it. When I tell Animal Conservation Science or Zoology students just how much their jobs will involve people, and the complexity of the human aspects of conservation, they start to really engage with them and can see how important they are to achieve their conservation goals.