We recently discovered the world's largest tropical peatland complex, spanning an area larger than England, in the heart of Africa. This proposal brings together an interdisciplinary team of scientists to study this newly discovered ecosystem. Our goal is to understand how the peatland became established, how it functions today, and how it will respond to human-induced climate change and differing future development pathways. We will use the results to inform critical policy decisions about the region. Peat is partially decomposed plant matter. Peatlands are some of the most carbon-dense ecosystems on Earth. Covering 3% of Earth's land surface, they store one-third of soil carbon. A recent NERC-funded PhD, led by CongoPeat PI Professor Lewis, showed for the first time that the largest wetland in Africa, in the central Congo Basin, contains extensive peat deposits. This research, published in 2017 in Nature, estimates that the peatland stores 30 billion tonnes of carbon (C). By comparison, in 2016, UK emissions were 0.1 billion tonnes of C. Our discovery increases global tropical peatland C stocks by 36%. We know very little about this new globally important ecosystem. Our data show peat accumulation began about 10,600 years ago, when central Africa's climate became wetter. Accumulation has been slow - on average just 2 m has accumulated over this period - but it is unknown whether this is due to a constant slow build-up of peat and C, or fast rates interspersed with losses in drier periods. Our evidence suggests that the peatlands are fed by rainfall, but such peatlands usually form domes ('raised bogs'), yet satellite data do not show this feature. Thus, we do not know how this peatland system developed, how it functions today, or how vulnerable it is to future climate and land use changes. Tropical peatlands in SE Asia have been extensively damaged by drainage for industrial agriculture, particularly oil palm, with serious biodiversity, climate and human health implications. Oil palm is now rapidly expanding across Africa. Congolese peatlands could become a globally significant source of atmospheric CO2 if they are drained, leading to their decay. A prerequisite of following a different development pathway is a scientific understanding of the region. The CongoPeat proposal therefore brings together leading experts from six UK universities, a science-policy communication specialist, and five Congolese partner organisations, to gain: 1. An integrated understanding of the origin and development of the central Congo peatland complex over the last 10,000 years. We will analyse peat deposit sequences from across the region, extracting preserved pollen grains, charcoal, and chemical markers, to reconstruct the changing environment through time. We will use an unmanned aerial vehicle to map peatland surface topography, and develop a mathematical model of peatland development. 2. A better estimate of the amount of C stored in the peat, its distribution, and the amounts of important greenhouse gases, CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide, being exchanged with the atmosphere. This will be achieved via extensive fieldwork to map peat distribution, and by installing intensive measurement stations to determine the flows of C into and out of the ecosystem. 3. An understanding of the possible future scenarios for the Congo peatlands. A range of models will be used to simulate the possible impacts of future climate and land-use change on the peatland, at local to global scales. Finally, we will effectively communicate these results to policy-makers in Africa and internationally via briefings and active media engagement. The CongoPeat team will produce the first comprehensive assessment of the genesis, development, and future of the world's largest tropical peatland, enabling the UK to retain world-leading expertise in understanding how the Earth functions as an integrated system and how humans are changing it.

NATURESCAPES addresses the pressing challenge of realising the transformative potential of nature-based solutions (NBS) for climate change, biodiversity loss and social justice. Despite progress in the field, our knowledge of the synergies and trade-offs from implementing NBS at scale across diverse and interconnected landscapes is limited. At the same time, there remain challenges in designing the governance arrangements, finance and forms of citizen engagement are needed while the value NBS for diverse social actors is increasingly contested - especially where they seem to bring benefits to some and new forms of inequity and exclusion to others. Advancing the transformative potential of NBS requires that we address these underlying challenges together – ensuring they are both effective and just. NATURESCAPES will advance our understanding of how NBS across interconnected urban, rural and coastal landscapes generate benefits for diverse communities, particularly in areas of socio-economic disadvantage, inequity and risk. We will analyse the synergies/trade-offs emerging for climate, biodiversity and communities in 30 ‘naturescapes’ across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and the USA, including 12 in-depth case-studies focusing on the dynamics of implementation, creating new insights and tools. In 7 of these cases we will co-design interventions with local collaborators that test transformative theories and practices of change and identify how these can be replicated. Led by Utrecht University, the NATURESCAPES consortium brings together expertise across the sciences, social sciences and humanities from five European Universities, The Nature Conservancy, WWF and Grupo Laera (a leading consultancy in NBS and ecosystem services in LAC), and an international collaboratory of stakeholders. Together, we will adopt a transdisciplinary approach to take forward the realisation of NBS that are transformative for climate change, biodiversity and communities.

Rural people across the global south are caught between competing land demands for large-scale cultivation, global conservation, and local needs. These can in theory be integrated locally through community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) and payments for ecosystem services (PES): where communities can decide on and benefit directly from natural resources, they may invest in and manage those resources in ways that are more socially and environmentally sustainable. CBNRM/PES initiatives are being rolled out across the global south, but there are conflicting views as to how well they work, for whom and under what circumstances. This is partly due to the complexity and multidimensionality of the ecosystem services (ES) and poverty alleviation (PA) outcomes involved, and the inevitable tradeoffs, but also to the hitherto limited use of either qualitatively or quantitatively rigorous impact evaluation approaches that are independent, control for confounding factors and ensure the voices of the most marginalized are heard. As well as being limited by generally weak research design, studies to date have often failed to account for the ways political sensitivities around changing access to and use of ecosystem services may compromise data quality and mask differentiated impacts. PIMA seizes a unique policy moment, with Tanzania's poverty reduction strategy Mkukuta driving nationwide implementation of CBNRM/PES-based Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), and other countries in the region considering comparable initiatives. The WMAs comprise different ecosystems (rangeland, miombo), socio-political structures (long-established/ethnically uniform vs recent, heterogeneous constituent villages), and a broad range of ecosystem services (water-regulating and -supplying, provision of forest products, grazing, livestock, crop and wildlife production, cultural services both local and global (from locally significant social and ritual spaces, to heritage and tourism). Before/after, inside/outside comparison of social and ecological outcomes for established WMAs with matched non-WMA areas (within the same ecosystems) offers an ideal opportunity for rigorous impact evaluation. PIMA combines analysis of remotely-sensed, public-domain MODIS and NDVI data, with cutting edge study of governance, and new data from qualitatively and quantitatively rigorous, differentiated survey of livelihoods and resource use histories, structured within a before/after, control/impact (BACI) research design. PIMA brings together a powerful international research team to work with strongly-rooted civil society organizations to ensure research excellence and development impact. Building on ongoing stakeholder engagement, with input sought from users, practitioners and policymakers at all stages pre- to post-project, PIMA ensures findings will be of direct use locally, nationally and internationally. PIMA 's framework and approach create channels for grassroots users to make experienced change in ecosystem services quality and quantity, and in poverty and wellbeing, more clearly heard by policymakers and practitioners, as well as highlighting tradeoffs and best practice lessons. Establishing what works, why and for whom will be of use not only to the one million rural people directly affected by WMAs, but will deliver insights and best practice lessons generalizable to the many millions more whose livelihoods and wellbeing are to be shaped by comparable CBNRM/PES initiatives. The findings delivered, and the mechanisms piloted, will give local users and national and international policymakers and practitioners the insights and tools to improve interventions through creating better upward and downward accountability. PIMA findings will be of use locally to rural people making collective and individual resource use decisions, through national levels, to international donors deciding how to invest scarce resources for ecosystem services and poverty alleviation.

The project will deliver urban food system transformation via Bauhaus Bites (BB) Food Environments, co-created and demonstrated in 7 cities at different levels of societal readiness, their transferability discussed with sister projects and European/global networks, and the results summarised in a Playbook for broad adoption. Bauhaus Bites Food Environments are urban and peri-urban ecosystems that commit to implementing sustainable healthy diets, amplified by the New European Bauhaus, and fortified with Nature-Based Solutions, ensuring that the transformed food environments of tomorrow are sustainable, inclusive and beautiful. By merging the key perspectives of European and global strategies such as the Farm to Fork and FOOD 2030 strategies, the Planetary Health Diet and the Planetary Health Diets with the New European Bauhaus values and principles, Bauhaus Bites offers a unique approach not yet seen in food system transformation projects, that will reimagine these food environments together with local, culturally diverse communities, customised to meet their needs, and anchored in social meeting spaces that carry meaning for them. The project will co-create BB Food environments in 3 Trailblazers (Birmingham, Fundão, Zagreb) and 4 Twins (Murska Sobota, Ostend, Palermo, Sarajevo) with different geographies, sizes, demographic challenges and societal readiness, boost mutual learning through a Community of Practice, document their added value with science-based indicators to inform high-level policy-making, test them for transferability with European/global networks, and summarise the learnings, guidelines, methods and examples in a Playbook. The BB approach will be based on inclusive participation and co-creation, including city and regional authorities, community- and business-driven initiatives, and inhabitants and end users of the food environments.