Save the Date: LUNZ Hub Big Tent Event - 18th September

On the 18th of September 2025, the Land Use for Net Zero (LUNZ) Hub will host a ‘Big Tent’ event, exploring relations with land and land use change, drawing particularly on contemporary experiences in Wales. With a participatory and creative focus, it seeks to engage people from farming, forestry, land management, agri-food businesses, the renewable energy sector, community groups, policy makers, planners, and researchers from a wide range of disciplines. Relations with land and land use change have recently become central issues of public debates and action in Wales and across other parts of the UK. In this event we wish to foster productive and creative discussions and activities around these issues. Specifically, the event is organised around three themes:

1. Listening to Divergent Perspectives on Land and Land Use Change. There are many people and agencies expressing often quite strongly divergent perspectives about the current and future uses of land, with at times expressions of disagreement both over shadowing areas of common understanding and the existence of a diversity of other, rather different, perspectives and concerns. Is it possible to recognise commonalities and to work more collectively to address land use challenges, including those of New Zero transitions, whilst acknowledging, respecting and learning from people with quite different, and perhaps often rarely expressed, experiences, expertise, interests and values? Also, would recognising commonalities and quieter voices significantly enrich and change dialogues and debates about people’s relations with land and land use change?
2. Trust, Knowledge and Decision Making. The diverse perspective expressed in current debates about contemporary and possible future uses of land, along with a series of changes in government policies, economic circumstances systems and technologies of knowledge production, raise many challenges for decision making about land use. Questions often posed include: Do I have enough information to make good decisions? Which, and whose information, can I trust? What does the information mean and how well does it reflect my current and future circumstances? How do I evaluate and make sense of a range of alternative options? Who is, and should be, making decisions about land use?
3. Recognising More of the Whole Picture? Land acts as the basis for a whole range of relationships and uses, and it is often challenging to sufficiently recognise this diversity in representations, actions and policies related to land use. A series of more holistic frameworks for these have been advanced, including whole-farm, whole-system and place-based thinking/approaches/policymaking. Questions, however, remain about how to operationalise these frameworks and the extent to which they still act to exclude important agents, voices and relationships.

Participants in this Big Tent event are invited to share views and experiences, consider practical examples, and discuss opportunities and challenges around changes in land management and ways to develop and implement change to mitigate and adapt to climate change for the benefit of nature and people. More details about the programme will be shared later in due course, including a link to the booking site.

This is one of a five LUNZ Hub Gatherings taking place around the UK. Each will have a distinct geographical and thematic foci. The first Big Tent event took place in Edinburgh, in September 2024 while a second was held in Cumbria in 2025 addressing upland and protected landscapes. Future events will consider themes relating to land use in lowland areas of England and Northern Ireland. 

Digwyddiad ‘Pabell Fawr’ Defnyddio Tir ar gyfer Sero Net (LUNZ)

Mae’r berthynas â thir a newid defnydd tir wedi dod yn faterion canolog mewn dadleuon cyhoeddus ac ymateb yng Nghymru ac ardaloedd eraill o’r DU. Yn y digwyddiad hwn, rydym yn dymuno meithrin trafodaethau a gweithgareddau cynhyrchiol a chreadigol o amgylch y materion hyn. Yn benodol, mae’r digwyddiad wedi’i drefnu o amgylch tair thema:

1. Gwrando ar Bersbectifau Amrywiol ar Ddefnyddio Tir a Newid Defnydd Tir

Mae llawer o unigolion ac asiantaethau yn mynegi safbwyntiau cryf, ac yn aml iawn, eithaf gwahanol, ynghylch defnydd presennol ac yn y dyfodol o dir. Ar adegau, mae’r anghytundebau hyn yn cysgodi meysydd o ddealltwriaeth gyffredin ac amrywiaeth o bersbectifau a phryderon eraill, sydd yn aml yn cael llai o sylw. A yw’n bosibl cydnabod y tebygrwydd a gweithio’n fwy ar y cyd i fynd i’r afael â heriau defnydd tir – gan gynnwys y trawsnewidiadau tuag at Sero Net – wrth gydnabod, yn parchu ac yn dysgu gan bobl sydd â phrofiadau, arbenigedd, diddordebau a gwerthoedd gwahanol, ac yn aml yn anodd eu clywed? Hefyd, a fyddai cydnabod y tebygrwydd a’r lleisiau tawelach yn cyfoethogi ac yn newid trafodaethau a dadleuon ynglŷn â’r berthynas rhwng pobl a’r tir a newid defnydd tir?

2. Ymddiriedaeth, Gwybodaeth a Gwneud Penderfyniadau

Mae’r amrywiaeth o bersbectifau a fynegir mewn dadleuon cyfredol ynglŷn â defnydd tir presennol ac yn y dyfodol, ynghyd â chyfres o newidiadau mewn polisïau llywodraethol, amgylchiadau economaidd a thechnolegau cynhyrchu gwybodaeth, yn codi nifer o heriau i’r broses o wneud penderfyniadau am ddefnydd tir. Ceir cwestiynau cyffredin megis: A oes gennyf ddigon o wybodaeth i wneud penderfyniadau da? Pa wybodaeth, a gan bwy, y gallaf ymddiried ynddi? Beth yw ystyr y wybodaeth a pha mor dda y mae’n adlewyrchu fy sefyllfa bresennol a’r dyfodol? Sut alla i werthuso ac ystyried dewisiadau amgen? Pwy sy’n gwneud, ac a ddylai wneud, penderfyniadau am ddefnydd tir?

3. Cydnabod y Darlun Ehangach?

Mae tir yn sail i ystod eang o berthnasoedd a defnyddiau, ac mae’n aml yn heriol i adlewyrchu’r amrywiaeth hon mewn cynrychioliadau, gweithredoedd a pholisïau sy’n ymwneud â defnydd tir. Mae nifer o fframweithiau mwy holistaidd wedi’u cynnig, gan gynnwys meddwl/ymagweddau/gwneud polisi sy’n seiliedig ar ffermydd cyfan, systemau cyfan a lleoliadau. Fodd bynnag, mae cwestiynau’n parhau ynghylch sut i weithredu’r fframweithiau hyn yn ymarferol a’r graddau y gallent barhau i eithrio asiantau, lleisiau a pherthnasoedd pwysig.

Mae’r rhai sy’n cymryd rhan yn y digwyddiad ‘Pabell Fawr’ hwn yn cael eu gwahodd i rannu safbwyntiau a phrofiadau, ystyried enghreifftiau ymarferol, a thrafod cyfleoedd a heriau ynghylch newidiadau mewn rheolaeth tir a ffyrdd o ddatblygu a gweithredu newid i liniaru ac addasu i newid hinsawdd er budd natur a phobl.

Bydd mwy o fanylion am y rhaglen yn cael eu rhannu maes o law, gan gynnwys dolen i’r wefan archebu.

Mae hwn yn un o bum Digwyddiad Clystyrau LUNZ sy’n cael eu cynnal ar draws y DU. Bydd gan bob un ffocws daearyddol a thematig unigryw. Cynhaliwyd y digwyddiad ‘Pabell Fawr’ cyntaf yn ninas Caeredin ym Medi 2024 , a’r ail yng Cumbria yn 2025, gan ganolbwyntio ar dir uwch a thirweddau gwarchodedig. Bydd digwyddiadau’r dyfodol yn ystyried themâu’n ymwneud â defnydd tir mewn ardaloedd isel yn Lloegr ac yng Ngogledd Iwerddon.