Restoryation Cairngorms seeks to broaden understanding of Cairngorms biodiversity, by exploring stories and perspectives about biodiversity that are often overlooked. The project aims to make these voices more visible in biodiversity research, policy, and management.
To do this, we have co-created an interactive online platform; this brings together over 40 contributors – including artists, scientists, storytellers, inclusion professionals, and conservation practitioners, to explore stories and perspectives on biodiversity that are often overlooked across the Cairngorms region.
The project focuses on Gaelic language and culture, montane woodland, and gender, as these three interlinking themes can give us an idea of how landscapes have changed, and how they were used in the past.
About the RestorYation Cairngorms platform
The aim of the platform is to aid greater understanding and inclusion in relation to biodiversity research and management, including amongst land managers, policy and other decision makers.
It is informed in collaboration with the Cairngorms Connect partnership, through events such as the Cairngorms Connect community conferences, and workshops exploring Gaelic in the landscape. In addition to videos, the platform includes an interactive map, allowing users to explore how the stories catalogued relate to different places in the Cairngorms.
Visit the platform here: Restoryation
More about the project
Narratives and stories are central in how we understand ourselves and our relations to others (both human and non-human). They underpin how we engage with the world, and how policies and practices are framed. Science plays an important role in shaping such narratives by promoting particular forms of knowledge, problematisation of issues, and solutions.
In this research, we identify narratives which are usually outside or on the margins of biodiversity research, and develop and evaluate audio-visual and interactive narrative tools and techniques to enable their productive engagement for transformative change.
Our review of existing research suggests three key forms of marginalisation work in relation to narratives and biodiversity research and management:
Marginalisation of particular ways of knowing
These include embodied, sensory and emotional as well as cognitive knowing; knowing as not only done by humans; and knowing as done through languages other than English-speaking and discursive domains. For example, minority languages, visual languages, as well as biosensory, biochemical or other more-than-human ‘languages’ or modes of articulation and response. The following video illustrates this with regard to Gaelic:
Marginalisation of particular ecologies
For example, particular species, species assemblages, habitats or ecotones. The following video illustrates this with regard to montane woodland and scrub ecologies:
…
Marginalisation of people and social or cultural groups
For example marginalisation of age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability. The following video illustrates this with regard to gender:
Flagging the gaps
In addition to highlighting less-heard perspectives about biodiversity, the project identifies perspectives that have not been articulated or have only been partially expressed as a story. We have created ‘placeholder’ videos as a way of flagging these gaps, and as an invitation or a prompt for people to respond to them. The following videos are examples of these prompts:
Would you like to contribute to this project with your story or perspective? Find out how to do this here.
Outputs from the RestorYation Cairngorms research
- In March 2023 we published a report on a scoping review of marginalised narratives in biodiversity research and management. In this report we review the opportunities and barriers to greater inclusivity of narratives typically marginalised in biodiversity research and management in Scotland. We draw on existing academic literature, policy documents and data, and stakeholder interviews. Download the report here.
- In October 2023 we presented this project at the Cairngorms Connect Staff and Volunteer Conference in Aviemore.
- In November 2023 we published a blog post summarising our work on this project to date, and our plans for the future of the project. Read the blog post here.
- Also in November 2023 we published a report on a scoping review of digital platforms suitable for developing greater inclusion of diverse biodiversity narratives. This report presents a scoping report of technologies suitable to present videos of narratives relating to biodiversity, with a focus on marginalised views and experiences of biodiversity. The report describes the process followed to choose the software and underlying structure to share those narratives on the internet. Download the report here.
- In April 2024, we co-organised a workshop on ‘Gaelic in the Landscape’, with Cairngorms Connect staff and partners.
- In September 2025 we took part in the Cairngorms Connect Staff and Volunteers conference, and Cairngorms Connect Community Conference, where we presented findings from the Restoryation project.
- In November 2025 we published a project deliverable (D2.4), reporting on the workshops and interviews conducted to test platform capacities for enabling more inclusive engagement. The report can be downloaded here.
- In June 2026 we co-organised a knowledge exchange event with Cairngorms Connect staff and partners, focusing on Gaelic and Ecology.
- In September 2026, we presented findings from the project at the Cairngorms Connect community conference, in Boat of Garten, where we publicly launched the Restoryation Cairngorms platform.
Researchers involved
This research is funded by the Scottish Government RESAS Strategic Research Programme (SRP) 2022 – 2027, and is part of D4.1 (People and Nature).
This project is informed by the project ‘Understories’ in the previous SRP 2016-2021.