Wetland Times

The Wetland Times project is funded by the British Academy as part of the Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary Research programme. Principal Investigators are Dr Nicola Thomas (University of Lancaster) and Blake Ewing (University of Nottingham). In my role as Co-Investigator I will be continuing to look at the Wadden Sea area and exploring its significance as a temporal ecosystem in dialogue with other global wetlands.

Time is central to conversations about climate change and conservation practice in the Anthropocene, which unsettles human narratives of progress, development, and freedom. But the accompanying prescription for ‘deep time’ and planetary thinking to solve ecological problems often threatens to dominate and overwrite the messy, locally-specific and culturally sensitive times that underpin the human relationship with nature.

Findings will inform conservation and environmental education practices across these three sites by enriching understanding of time in the Anthropocene, empowering communities to reconsider prevailing temporal narratives, and facilitating knowledge exchange between wetland research and visitor centres.