The future of the Cornwall National Landscape: An Invitation to Co-Design a New Research Project

 

An Invitation to Co-Design a New Research Project

The Cornwall National Landscape (CNL) is more than a protected area; it is a living, working, culturally rich place. From the rugged Atlantic coast to Bodmin Moor, from fishing coves and estuaries to farmland and historic settlements, these landscapes carry deep ecological value, shape local identity, and support thousands of livelihoods.

But they also face growing pressures: climate change, coastal erosion, rising visitor numbers, shifting agricultural policy, rural housing challenges, and competing demands on land and sea.

My PhD research at Falmouth University explores these pressures and possibilities, and I want to involve the people who know these landscapes best.

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The Research Question

How does social capital influence environmental stewardship and sustainable business development in protected landscapes, and in what ways can the Community Capitals Framework (CCF) be applied to assess and enhance governance outcomes in the Cornwall National Landscape (CNL) five-year plan?

Research Aim

To explore tensions between sustainable business growth and conservation.

Research Focus

To understand how social capital, the relationships, trust, networks, and norms that connect people and organisations, shapes environmental stewardship and sustainable economic development across the CNL.

This project is guided by a simple principle:

Cornwall’s landscapes are lived-in and cared-for by communities: so they should play a central role in shaping the research.

This blog post is an invitation to co-design the project, refine what matters, and ensure that the outcomes reflect real experiences on the ground.

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What Is the Research About?

At its core, the project asks how protected landscapes, historically focused on conservation and recreation, can also help strengthen:

• Local economies
• Community wellbeing
• Cultural resilience
• Ecological integrity

This brings together several ongoing debates in Cornwall and the wider UK:

• Heritage & Identity: Engine houses, fishing harbours, Cornish hedges, and Kernewek all require investment, care, and sensitive management.
• Tourism: A vital economic driver, but one that places pressure on ecosystems, infrastructure, and community life.
• Land & Sea Stewardship: Policies increasingly emphasise nature recovery, climate action, and sustainable land management.
• Community Voice: Many Cornish communities seek more inclusive governance models that reflect their identity, rights, and aspirations for year-round living and working.

Understanding these dynamics requires collaboration and not just academic analysis.

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Why Co-Design?

Cornwall National Landscape is a complex social–ecological system shaped by farming, fishing, mining, migration, culture, and centuries of environmental change. To study it meaningfully, the research must involve those who understand it from lived experience.

Co-design brings:

Local knowledge

Insights from residents, farmers, fishers, guides, and community volunteers who understand seasonal rhythms, pressures, and opportunities.

Industry & heritage expertise

Tourism operators, environmental bodies, and cultural organisations can highlight business realities, visitor trends, and heritage needs.

Shared decision-making

Participants help shape the research questions, methods, and interpretation of findings.

Real-world impact

Co-produced research produces recommendations that support planning, governance, sustainable tourism, cultural initiatives, and community-led action.

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How You Can Contribute

There are several ways to get involved, all voluntary and flexible:

1. Feedback on Research Direction

• What issues matter most to you?
• What tensions or opportunities do you see?
• Where do policies or practices fall short?

2. Community Conversations / Interviews

Share lived experience of tourism, farming, fishing, conservation, heritage, housing, or local business.

3. Participatory Workshops

Workshops will explore priorities such as sustainable tourism, nature recovery, cultural identity, and community wellbeing.

4. Longer-Term Collaboration (optional)

Help sense-check findings, co-interpret results, or co-develop practical frameworks.

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Themes Where Your Insight Matters Most

I particularly welcome views on:

• The future role of tourism
• Balancing heritage (from mining landscapes to Kernewek) with sustainability
• Farming, fishing, and land/sea management experiences
• Community wellbeing, cultural identity, and economic resilience
• Environmental change, coastal pressures, and seasonality
• How relationships, networks, and social capital shape decision-making
• What a “sustainable future for Cornwall” looks like to you

Your perspective will help shape a more grounded, meaningful research project.

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Get Involved

If you’d like to participate or stay informed:

📩 Email: NG286123@falmouth.ac.uk
👥 Attend a workshop: Dates to be announced
🔗 Recommend people or groups to contact

All participation is confidential and entirely voluntary.

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Closing Thoughts

Protected landscapes belong to both their past and their future. As Cornwall navigates changes in tourism, environment, governance, livelihoods, and cultural identity, we need new ways of understanding and managing these places.

Co-designed research recognises that landscape stewardship is not an abstract policy exercise, it is lived, negotiated, contested, and cared for every day by the people who call Cornwall home.

Whether you farm on Bodmin Moor, manage a heritage site, run a business, volunteer in conservation, speak Kernewek, or simply love Cornwall’s landscapes,  your insight is invaluable.

I look forward to listening, learning, and shaping this research together.

 

Research Updates

Welcome back to my research blog. With the PhD now taking shape and the project moving from early scoping into deeper conceptual and methodological work, it felt like the right moment to share a full update on where the research is heading, what has evolved, and what new questions are coming into focus.

Over the past few months, the project has grown from an initial exploration of sustainable business in the Cornwall National Landscape into a broader investigation of governance, social capital, and cultural identity within protected landscapes. Below is an overview of the direction the research is now taking and the ideas guiding its next steps.

An Evolving Focus: From Sustainable Business to Governance and Social Capital

At the start of the PhD, it was primarily looking at sustainable business development within the Cornwall National Landscape (CNL). After digging deeper into policies, management plans, and community dynamics, a different pattern started to emerge:

Sustainable outcomes in protected landscapes depend just as much on relationships as they do on regulations.

This realisation shifted the emphasis of the research. The central question is now:

How does social capital influence environmental stewardship and sustainable business development in protected landscapes, and in what ways can the Community Capitals Framework (CCF) be applied to assess and enhance governance outcomes in the Cornwall National Landscape (CNL) five-year plan?

Instead of looking only at business opportunities, I’m now analysing the wider governance ecosystem:

• how local communities work with institutions
  

• how partnership networks form
  

• how trust, shared identity, and cultural heritage shape action
  

• how policies translate into practice across the CNL’s diverse landscapes
  

This gives the project a stronger conceptual foundation and connects it to wider debates in environmental governance and rural development.

Building a Theoretical Toolkit

A big part of the recent work has focused on refining the thesis’s conceptual scaffolding. The three key pieces are now:

1. Social Capital

Networks, trust, shared norms, and connections across groups (bonding, bridging, and linking ties). These influence everything from volunteer mobilisation to cross-sector partnerships and compliance with planning decisions.

2. Community Capitals Framework (CCF)

This framework identifies seven capitals (natural, cultural, social, human, political, financial, built) and helps show how community assets interact to support or hinder sustainable outcomes. It’s especially useful for unpacking governance complexity.

3. Landscape Governance

Protected landscapes are no longer just conservation spaces, they are arenas where ecological, social, economic, political, and cultural components meet. Governance is increasingly multi-actor, place-based, and negotiated.

Bringing these three lenses together creates a clearer way to analyse Cornwall’s protected landscape and understand the forces shaping its future.

Why This Research Matters

Protected landscapes are undergoing a major shift, moving from “scenic designations” to active spaces of climate action, nature recovery, and sustainable economic development. The Cornwall National Landscape is at the forefront of this shift.

Yet policies can only do so much. Real progress depends on:

• trust between agencies and communities
  

• collaboration across sectors
  

• strong linking ties to decision-makers
  

By exploring these dynamics, the research hopes to offer:

• tools for building effective partnerships
  

• evidence for strengthening governance capacity
  

• insights into connecting policy ambitions to place-based realities
  

Next Steps

Upcoming work includes:

• mapping stakeholder networks
  

• analysing the CNL Plan through the lens of community capitals
  

• beginning interviews with land managers, businesses, community groups, and policymakers
  

• exploring the role of cultural narratives (including poems, songs, and folklore) in shaping perceptions of Cornwall’s landscapes
  
  

There’s much still to uncover, and the project will continue to evolve as new connections, tensions, and opportunities come into focus.

Thanks for reading and following along with this research journey. More updates, field notes, and reflections coming soon.

Updated PhD resreach proposal

 

Daymer Bay, Camel Estuary, Cornwall

I have updated my PhD research here is the current proposal.

Subject Area: Business and Environmental Sustainability.  

 

Research question 

How can the 2022-2027 Cornwall National Landscape Management Plan, serve as a framework to define and implement best practices that promote economic resilience and environmental stewardship in areas of outstanding natural beauty? 

Research overview and context: 

This multi-disciplinary research aims to explore the conflict that exists between the mandatory requirement to promote sustainable business growth and development in Cornwall's National Landscape, (CNL) formally known as the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Beauty. 

Recent studies on Natural Landscapes (NL) have covered many topics. Yet, the role of fostering sustainability and business development in protected landscapes is a topic which lacks is under-explored. This research focuses on Cornwall's NL a significant part of the county's economy.  The research will use and through practice and action research contribute to the CNL's Management Plan (2022-2027) by investigating the identified and often perceived conflict between sustainability and business development. 

This research examines and critically analyses the CNL in promoting sustainable businesses. It will analyse their Management Plan (2022-2027) to identify opportunities and challenges for current and future businesses that align with the Cornwall NL vision and strategic priorities.  

 

The research will involve stakeholders at various levels and incorporate lessons from successful models in the UK and globally.   

 

Sustainable development has emerged not only as a global and local strategy through the Sustainable Development Goals but has also generated ongoing epistemological and theoretical debate. The research will draw on a theoretical approach that integrates social, economic, and environmental dimensions.  This research will be informed by these broader theoretical discussions and in particular draw on theoretical frameworks that explore the relationship between sustainable development and reflexive modernity (Borne 2010; Borne 2018) 

 

Significance of the Research: 

 

The research fills a critical research gap by exploring sustainable business operations within protected natural areas, specifically Conservation Landscapes (CLs) in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in Cornwall and the key focus areas include: 

Unexplored Sustainable Practices: It will delve into how businesses can operate sustainably in these protected zones, an area not extensively covered in existing research. 

 

Economic-Environmental Equilibrium: The research addresses the underexplored balance between economic development and environmental conservation using a sustainable development lens. 

 

Community and Policy Dynamics: It provides new insights into partnership working, engaging local communities and policymakers, a relatively neglected aspect in current literature. 

 

Broader Applicability: The study offers generalisable findings and empirical evidence relevant to similar regions worldwide. 

Expected Aims: 

• An in-depth critical analysis of promoting sustainable businesses in the CNL, based on its Management Plan, identifies key opportunities and challenges. 

• Development of a practical framework in line with CNL's goals to guide and grow sustainable SMEs in the region, including a section on sustainable tourism certification, aiding SME investment and community engagement across CNL. 

• Suggestions for policy improvements, stakeholder engagement strategies, and partnerships to foster sustainable business growth in the CNL, emphasising the creation of CNL business support networks. 

• Critical examination of the relationship between environmental conservation, economic sustainability, diversity, inclusion, and community welfare within the CNL.  

• The development of a sustainable academic research partnership between Falmouth University and CNL. 

Research Objectives: 

1. Opportunity Assessment: Identify and evaluate the opportunities embedded in the CNL's Management Plan (2022-2027) for the development of sustainable businesses within CNL. 

2. Barrier Analysis: Examine barriers and challenges to sustainable businesses in the CNL, covering tourism, technology, infrastructure, second home ownership, access equality (diversity, economic affordability), business dynamics, planning, skills, funding, education, environmental management, and aging population impacts. 

3. Best Practice Models: Explore and assess existing best practice models for sustainable business development, drawing lessons and strategies from both national and international contexts, and evaluate their relevance to the CNL and Cornwall. 

4. Key Attributes of Sustainable Businesses: Define the core attributes of a sustainable business in a Natural Landscape (NL), supported by research on business success and failure to develop a picture of what “sustainable business” looks like. 

5. Framework Development: Construct a comprehensive and adaptable framework that aligns with the CNL's Management Plan, guiding the establishment and growth of sustainable businesses in this unique natural environment. 

6. Define pathways for innovation, creativity, and incubation of new Student businesses.  The development of a strategy that supports identifying and supporting new and existing student businesses within the CNL.   

7. Sustainable community and business stakeholder engagement models.  The research aims to establish a tangible model for stakeholder engagement in project implementation and future community projects, involving community, political, educational, environmental, and business leaders. 

Research Methodology  

I will employ a mixed methods approach collecting both qualitative and quantitative data.  This data is triangulated to deliver robust conclusions and recommendations. 

Literature Review: Conduct a review of academic literature, CNL business plan, UK Government Environmental frameworks, case studies, and exemplary models related to sustainable business development within CNL and comparable protected areas. 

Data Collection and Analysis: The research will use a mixture of both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect analysis from CNL and stakeholders.  This will include In-depth interviews and focus groups as well as relevant case studies.  Content and discourse analyses will be employed to explore relevant themes and issues. Broader surveys will be developed to explore the broader issues relating to the national landscapes and sustainable business.  Both inferential and descriptive statistics will be used to analysis the surveys. 

Comparative Analysis of existing/new UK data: Using the UK Government Environmental Plan (2023) targets and assessment framework as a benchmark.  

Framework Construction: Develop a practical and adaptable framework informed by research findings and tailored to the specific needs of the CNL for promoting sustainable businesses. 

Impact Assessment: Utilise a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods including cost-benefit analysis (Boardman, 2018), Narrative Analysis (Riessman, 2008) and Social Impact Assessment (Vanclay, 2003). 

Participatory Action Research (McIntyre, 2008) in a live environment developing relationships with stakeholders within CNL to support research findings from practical application of their delivery plan,  captured through journalling and reflection. 

 

Research outcomes will be presented as: 

 

• An 80000-word written thesis capturing the objectives listed above.