Lowland England Big Tent, Ely

This Land Use for Net Zero (LUNZ) ‘Big Tent’ event explores relations with land and land use change in lowland England, drawing particularly on contemporary experiences in East Anglia.

With a participatory and creative focus, this Big Tent gathering seeks to engage people from farming, agro-forestry, land management, agri-food businesses, the renewable energy sector, community groups, policy makers, planners, and researchers from a wide range of organisations.

Addressing issues of climate change mitigation and adaptation, whilst ensuring land use for food security and the needs of nature and people, pose major challenges in many areas of lowland England. For example, the Fens is an area central for UK food production, containing an estimated 50% of the UK’s total Grade I agricultural land (NFU,2019), but is also seen as an area whose drained lowland peat soils are not only “among the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the land-use sector” (Defra 2023) but are also rapidly degrading in quality, and the area is also subject to considerable water management challenges.

In this event, we wish to foster productive and creative discussions and activities, evaluating progress on these challenges and how lessons learned can be more effectively shared. Amongst the issues addressed in this event will be changing systems of agricultural production, land sparing and sharing, integration of nature regeneration and farming, soil regeneration, spatial variability in desirable land use change, water management, community engagement and collaborative working.

Participants in this Big Tent event are invited to share views, knowledge and experiences, plus consider practical examples. The event spans two days (18^th and 19^th March 2026), with the first day consisting of a field trip around Ely and Peterborough, exploring farming systems and changing practices, agro-forestry, nature recovery and water management.

The second day, in the Maltings, Ely, involves a full day of interactive discussions, presentations, creative activities and networking opportunities.

You can book a place on either day here. More specific details about the programme will appear on this website shortly.

This is one of five LUNZ Hub Gatherings taking place around the UK. Each has distinct geographical and thematic foci. The first Big Tent event took place in Edinburgh, in September 2024, a second was held in Cumbria in March 2025, and a third was held in Llandudno, Wales. A further event will be held in Northern Ireland later in 2026.