Author: gs

John Muir Trust – SEDA Land: online conversation on a carbon tax for land

The newly formed SEDA Land [1] organised an online conversation on 10 November 2021 in which the John Muir Trust [2] set out its proposal for a carbon tax on land. Several invited responders then commented on the proposal. Members of the audience asked questions via a chat line.

It was a much needed debate. Land is being degraded and losing its store of carbon in many parts of Scotland. The diagram below was constructed as a step towards completing my understanding of the complexity of interactions linking a carbon tax to land management and hence land-based carbon storage and GHG emissions.

Complex sets of processes are identified as single boxes, some grouped and some linked by arrows. Boxes shaded grey are those that (the author suggests) received most discussion during the Conversation.

Figure 1. Decision trees (simplified) linking interventions on the right (taxation, inducement, management) though land type to biophysical processes (centre) and ‘pillars’ of sustainability.

Change in management inevitably leads to some alteration in the biophysical and social-economic parts of the overall ecosystem and so will have a range of outcomes other than those on carbon and emissions. Some of these outcomes may be unintended or unexpected. 

A general feeling at the meeting was that there should be a broad, holistic approach to defining the problem and executing the solutions. Less silo-ing among all parties involved is therefore needed.

Explanation of the diagram

The structure is based on a decision tree of the type created in DEXi software [3]. Starting from the left , the system is divided into biophysical and social-economic attributes (A, B) but there is nothing rigid or fixed in this – other categories could be placed here. Both branches subdivide into other branches (technically called nodes and leaves) which can be extended as needed to include the fine-scale workings of the system. Regulation of carbon and emissions (box C) can only work through the biophysical attributes (e.g. primary production, organic matter breakdown, microbial activity, food webs, element cycling, etc.) which are not shown in detail.

Carbon and emissions are of course not the only high-level attributes linked by biophysical and social-economic processes. All the others – food, industrial products, alcohol, wood, fibre, power – are represented by box D.

Three groups of  ‘interventions’ are shown influencing boxes C and D (and hence A and B). First, to the far right, are those related to taxation (G): the boxes within G indicate some of the topics discussed at the meeting, for example, area-thresholds and criteria for defining carbon in land. Taxation, etc. has to operate through land management (box F) – and while the current proposal is slanted towards land of low agricultural productivity, there are strong arguments not to exclude managed grass and arable lands, which can hold much more carbon and emit far less than they presently do. Management interventions operate through land types or classes which are shown in a separate box (E). Change in one land category generally affects what goes on in another.

External influences

A particular part of the diagram (at the bottom) alludes to a crucially important set of processes – those that act from outside the region or country but have a great effect inside it. So over-reliance on imports, and purchase of land by external countries and corporations as a means to carbon offsetting, will put a break on internal interventions designed to increase the biophysical and social-economic sustainability of land.

It is essential therefore to include within the set of interventions (G) explicit regulations – here termed global responsibility – that are designed to prevent aggressive purchasing of land within the country and despoilation (including ecocide) in other countries. Interestingly the international crime of ecocide was defined by lawyers earlier in 2021 [4].

Despite the complexity of the topic, the scientific and technical capability to set criteria and estimate C storage and emissions is within reach. Moreover, the examples given at the meeting of how energy-use can be graded (for example for appliances and domestic housing) and of how taxation has already reduced damage to society, show that the approach proposed by JMT could work.

GR Squire, draft for SEDA 12 Nov 2021, modified and uploaded to curvedflatlands 27 November 2021 (with minor edits 8 December 2021).

More to follow

Sources | links

[1] SEDA Land’s web site describes the formation of the organisation and gives information on recent and upcoming events https://www.seda.uk.net/seda-land

[2] John Muir Trust https://www.johnmuirtrust.org/

[3] DEXi by Marko Bohanec: more on this web site on the functioning of decision trees and links to the software at SEDA Land Conversations.

[4] Ecocide – The Living Field web site under its DIARY21 lists developments during the present year by those intent on bringing the crime of Ecocide to public attention. DIARY21 gives links to reports and announcements.

The SEDA Land Conversations, online in March and April 2021, have taken place and the report on them is due in June. Updated matrix and decision tree, used to guide content and summarise developments, are described here.

The series of SEDA Land Conversations – A New Vision for Land Use in Scotland – was held online between 1 March and 12 April 2021. This post updates a previous description of the matrix and decision tree that were used to define the scope of the conversations.

SEDA’s approach for assistance with the Conversations at the end of 2020 was welcomed in a previous post – Land Conversations 2021 – which related some interactions with SEDA several years ago.

Introduction

Two simple devices were used to assist development of the Land Conversations: a 2-D matrix and a decision tree. Each of these depicted connections between two of the several ‘dimensions’ through which land use operates and can be influenced:

• Basal states (topography, soil, climate)
• Land Use types
• Outputs and products from the land – ‘What we get from land’
• Governance and society (often two separate dimensions) including ownership, public needs, power balance, political will
• External influences – mainly human causes – including global food system, import dependence, and then blockade, war, global pollution.
• External influences – mainly ‘natural’ – e.g. volcanic eruption, mass-transfer by air.

These dimensions are presented for illustration here – they are not all-encompassing, not fixed. The first three in the list tend to be directly connected, in that Outputs and products depend much on basal states but can also influence basal states (e.g. several thousand years of deforestation, two decades of growing potato).

Matrix

A spreadsheet was constructed (Fig. 1) to list, in rows, the broad types of land use, and in columns, their outputs and products or ‘What we get from land’. Not all cells in the matric are occupied, but where there was clear evidence of occupancy, the cell was identified by a colour and symbol (see later). 

Fig. 1 A matrix of land use types (e.g. wind power, livestock production, wild land) and products or ‘(what we get from the land’ (e.g. energy, food, peace of mind): the arrows indicate a cell where there is a strong connection or interaction between land use type and product.

The matrix evolved as topics of the Land Conversations were being developed – examples later.

Decision tree

The tree is a simple device which partitions various linked entities in a hierarchy that can be converted to a model using for example DEXi software. The tree has a main trunk – which might be a sustainable future for land use in the region, which divides into several main branches (perhaps Land Use types) which in turn divide into further subbranches and leaves. In a model the leaves and branches can be combined quantitatively to give the status at any point in the tree. Also, the tree can be interrogated, for example, to assess the extent to which current food supply can be satisfied by production.

Fig. 2  Decision tree of main land use types and sub-categories (rows in the matrix): each category can be rated in relation to delivering one or more ‘products’ and the ratings combined through utility functions.

The matrix and tree were used to help guide discussion towards a set of concrete topics that would form the basis of the  conversations.

Matrix of Land Use types and five groups of products from the land

The Land Use types were a highly restricted set, presented in the first two left-hand columns in Fig. 3. The products and outputs were designated in columns under the descriptors ‘What we get from land’ and ‘Why we need land’ and were distinguished in five groups: 1) products from the land, 2) economy and employment, 3) losses and pollution, 4) wildlife and shared space and 5) human wellbeing and perception.  Where there was a clear interaction between row and column a cell was identified by a colour and an asterisk (explained later).

With reference to the dimensions listed at the beginning, Basal states and Land Use types are combined in the left-hand columns, while ‘What we get from land’ is condensed into the five groups listed in the previous paragraph. What about the other dimensions? Governance and society appeared as additional columns to the right of the matrix (under headings Ownership/influence and Political/administrative). The very wide range of external impacts was simply alluded to by the row in grey at the bottom of the matrix.

Fig. 3 Land Use Matrix: colours and asterisks define cells where a strong interaction exists between Land Use type and ‘What we get from land’; further dimensions are indicated by the grey shaded area to the right (ownership / political) and the grey row at the bottom (external influences). Zoom in to read detail.

The intention was that each Land Conversation would concentrate on a sub-set of cells in the matrix, and it was also envisaged that connections between cells or groups of cells would become apparent during the discussion. An example of connected topics in one Conversation is given in Fig. 4 (note – using an earlier form of the matrix).

Fig. 4 Example to show indicative topics in one of the land conversations. Note: the matrix above was based on an earlier draft and differs in detail from the final version depicted in Fig. 3.

Topics covered in each Land Conversation

The central Land Conversations LC 2, 3, 4 and 5 were intended to cover many of the topics of interest. LC1 introduced the concept behind the event and LC 6 considered next steps.

To compare coverage by the four central conversations, the matrix was adapted in the following way: if a connection (i.e. a cell) was covered then its colour and asterisk (see Fig. 3) were both left in place; but if a connection was not covered, the colour was removed but the asterisk left in place. The resulting coverage is suggested in Fig. 5. The result is highly subjective – one person (GRS) listening and noting – but from these observations, each Land Conversation was distinct and the overall coverage fairly comprehensive.

Fig. 5 Main topics discussed during the central four Land Conversations (author’s perception): LC 2, spread across green (products), yellow (economy/employment), orange (losses/pollution) and grey (wildlife/shared space); LC 3, mainly yellow orange and grey; LC4, mainly blue (human wellbeing) and grey; LC5, spread wide but concentrating on integration (shown by yello, blue and grey boxes).

Inevitably, as the base for the Land Conversations was land and its usage, the earlier conversations tended to be confined to specific sectors, but as the Conversations progressed, rows and columns began to be considered as complete entities. In LC 5 in particular, the columns ‘rural economy / jobs’ and ‘rural repopulation / housing’ and the lowest row ‘integrated/local – multifunctional’ were examined more as a whole than as discrete cells (as indicated by the outlined boxes around each row or column.

Extending to higher dimensions

The use of a decision tree can allow – in principle – the incorporation of the additional dimensions listed at the beginning. This is a complicated procedure that so far has not been completed for the Conversations, but the example in Fig. 6 shows the scale and the potential. A tree depicts Land use types (rows of the matrix) and suggests connections to ‘What we get from the land’ (columns of the matrix). The resulting tree, if constructed in these two dimensions, would be highly complex. However, the challenge lies in incorporating the other dimensions.

Fig. 6 Land use matrix presented as a decision tree with examples to show how Land use type connects with ‘What we get from the land’.

Querying the tree

Trees of the general form in Fig. 6 can be operated in both directions. We can ask what is the present system status, defined by how far the current land use types produce adequate products and outputs.  Or we can define what would be the ideal status and then ask how would land use types or the activities in them have to change to deliver the desired status.

The Land Conversations showed without question the need to invoke the second of these two. Speaker after speaker emphasised that the current system is not fit for purpose, in that few of the needed products and outputs, in any of the five groups, are currently provided by the land.

As an example, the links in Fig. 6 for first groups of products (green boxes) are expanded slightly in Fig. 7 to illustrate the question of how the present status of dependence on imports for staple carbs, wood and natural fibre can be lessened or removed altogether. Even a cursory analysis would conclude that the present status is a result partly of internal land use decisions and partly of higher-dimensional (some very powerful, mostly negative) influences. To achieve the aims, the present Land Use types and activities within them would need to be rebalanced, but that rebalancing could only be achieved by a complete reorganisation of current governance and public attitudes.

Fig. 7 Decision tree extended to include Products from the Land and illustrating some additional dimensions that would need to be incorporated if import dependence was to be removed.

A major bar to progress is that current land use is highly sectorised throughout the dimensions. Vested interests compete to keep things as they are. The Integrated/local land use type, though small in area at present, is given some prominence in Fig. 7 because – as discussed in LC 5 and 6 in particular – it can manipulate and rearrange the different land uses and products towards a desired blend.

As a further indicative example, links are shown in Fig. 8 between Land Use types and another of the groupings under  ‘What we get from land’, this one being Losses and Pollution. The tree could be extended via biophysical processes to link Land Use types to the categories of loss and pollution. 

Fig. 8 Decision tree extended to show main negative influences on the four categories under Losses and Pollution.

Final remarks

The main aims of constructing a matrix and decision tree were to assist in the selection of topics in the SEDA Land Conversations.

• It is stressed that the examples given in Figures 3 to 8 are indicative and not intended to be final or fixed. While the examples have concentrated on Products from the Land, or ‘plant production’ in the tree, the other Land use types can be extended as necessary.
• Dexi decision tree software is easy to use by people and groups who might wish to elaborate on Fig. 3, etc., or construct a different version (search ‘Dexi’ & ‘Bohanec’ to get to Marko Bohanec’s IJS-Slovenia web site and downloadable programme). Dexi has been used extensively in collaborations between the Hutton and EU groups.
• A matrix and decision tree were found useful as simple visual aids but there are many other modelling systems that may be more appropriate to handle the complexity of what is being examined and proposed.

Contact: geoff.squire@outlook.com

[Online 29 Jun 2021, minor edits 22 Apr 2022]

The Scottish Ecological Design Association has been progressing at pace with the organisation of their 6 Land Conversations. The first one will be held later today, details and booking at A New Vision for Land Use in Scotland.

Land use in Scotland and its immediate products are varied and spatially complex. They are influenced by matters of ownership and political will and a range of external agents of both human and natural origin. A matrix and decision tree are being developed as an aid to understanding the complexity.

[The tools were developed and updated during the conversations – later versions and examples of their use are given at SEDA Land Conversat-ons

Matrix

A matrix of land use and outputs is is intended both to help set the scene and to summarise discussion over the coming weeks. The matrix as it stands at 1200 today 1 March 2021 is shown below (Fig. 1).

Land use is divided into broad categories of energy, water, urban/industrial, wild land, rough grazing, grassland, arable land, integrated/local enterprise and forest/woodland. The columns represent a second major dimension – things that the land provides or imposes as a result of management acting within local constraints. Categories include products from the land, economy/employment, pollution/losses, wildlife/shared space and human wellbeing.

Other dimensions are indicated outside the matrix. There are factors of land ownership and political will (columns to the right, left unfinished at this stage) and external influences (grey row below). The external influences can be further divided into those that are caused mainly by human interventions, such as the import-exports balance, wars and blockades; and those that can be classed as natural phenomena, such as weather and climate, storms and volcanic eruption. Pervading the whole, but not included in the matrix as shown in Fig. 1 is the biophysical baseline – geological and climatic history, topography, soils and our location on the Atlantic fringe.

Fig. 1 Matrix of land use classes (listed left, in rows) and things provided by the land, which are not all positive (coloured blocks, columns). A further dimension of ownership and political will is indicated by the grey columns to the right and the complex and varied external influences are represented very simply by the grey row at the bottom. Click for a PDF to view detail, including notes.

Each cell in the matrix is given a simple provisional score from empty, indicating little relation between the land use type (rows) and the output (columns), and then *, ** or *** indicating increasing relation or effect.

At this stage, the categories in rows and columns and the scoring in the cells are provisional and for illustration only. They are expected to evolve during the course of the Land Conversations in the light of discussion, comments and new understanding. The development of the matrix will be charted here with acknowledgements to those who have contributed.

Decision tree: a semi-quantitative assessment tool

The matrix is also being converted to a decision tree in DEXi software [1]. Like the matrix it will evolve with the Land Conversations. An initial description showing land use categories as branches of a tree and the other dimensions listed to the right is shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 Diagram to illustrate the use of decision tree software as a means of organising the multiple dimensions of land use. The tree to the left shows the land categories, slightly modified from Fig. 1. The other dimensions, including the columns from the matrix, ownership/political will, and the various human and natural external influences are listed to the right. Each of the Other Dimensions interacts with the land use tree at many points, and any one interaction will affect other aspects of land use and other dimensions. Click for a PDF of the above.

Acknowledgements | contributions

• SEDA and in particular Gail Halvorsen and David Seel for continued interaction over the scope and use of the matrix.
• Will McGee from Forest Policy Group for suggesting realistic categories for the forest/woodland land use types.

Sources | references

[1] Decision models in DEXi are widely used in ecology and system studies. DEXi from Marko Bohanec at the Josef Stefan Institute, Slovenia is available to download: DEXi: a programme for multi-attribute decision making

Contact: geoff.squire@hutton.ac.uk or geoff.squire@outlook.com

[Updates – 2 March with decision tree figure and 3 March with text edits.]

Scottish Ecological Design Association’s Land Conversations, spring 2021. Six online discussions on the future of land use in Scotland. Including all forms of land – urban, wild, agriculture, forestry, industry. A call for people to decide the future of land in Scotland. With some recollections of earlier work with SEDA.

Back in 2012, the Scottish Ecological Design Association (SEDA) got in touch with an invitation to join them at their annual meeting and give a presentation on some of our work on the state and future of land, particularly that used for agriculture [1]. The meeting proved to be a refreshing example of searching discussion by people with interests and professions that were mostly outwith the scientific disciplines typically associated with food and agriculture.

Following the meeting, Sam Foster from SEDA wrote an appreciative summary of the talk (left, click to see a larger version), then he and David Seel, also from SEDA, asked if we would edit an Issue of the SEDA magazine.

The issue came out in 2013 [2] and included articles from several Hutton Institute people, and also friends and collaborators in soils, ecological processes, human fallibility and their links to land use and food security (more on the issue below).

Land Conversations 2021

So David Seel’s call, seven years later, in autumn 2020, with a request to advise SEDA on their proposed series of online Land Conversations, brought back some of those memories. Over the last few months, there has been continued interaction with SEDA, mainly through Gail Halvorsen and David Seel, who are leading the Land Conversations project, and then with ex-colleagues from the Hutton Institute who will be offering their expertise. The programme for the Conversations is now published on the SEDA web site [3, and flyer below right], which gives more on the scope and purpose. Here’s why it appealed to me.

First, the coverage of land use is comprehensive. It included production land comprising agriculture, forestry, and rough grazing; wild land and rewilding; water, both visible on the surface and underground; but also urban land, industrial and residential, transport infrastructure including roads and rail, and then energy – wind, solar, hydro (fossil and nuclear coming under industry). This broad consideration will be particularly appealing to those (me included) who have repeatedly queried why even activities as close as agriculture and forestry have been treated separately in census, subsidy and planning.

Second, most people in SEDA, and their circle of related interests, are not specialists in food systems or land use, except where that cuts across architectural design. Yet they have an abiding interest in the future of the planet, and how things can be done differently. They also bring, in my experience to date, a professionalism and businesslike drive that derives from hi-tech, commercial business.

There is little difference, when it comes to the principles, between designing architecture and designing a food system or field [4].

The science of food and agriculture has tended to produce many reports and papers that summarise the present status and what needs to be done, but not enough (my view!) of integrated planning and putting that planning into practice. Special meetings and working groups, all charged with redefining policy, commonly achieve less that what is needed, often due to vested interests pulling in different ways.

There will be little progress until enough people come together to act and demand. The Conversations and their aftermath should make a major contribution to such progress.

In the meantime, some mild effort is going into structuring diagrams and decision trees based around each of the six Conversations (examples of which will appear on this site over the next few weeks).

The 2013 SEDA ISSUE on SOIL and natural capitaL

The conclusions of the talk at the SEDA AGM in 2012 were based on much field work on farm land, augmented by modelling and analysis over many years. The long history of agriculture and food production here was acknowledged, as was the diverse range of farming systems and the high productivity of the region, as good as anything else in north-west Europe. But the talk exposed threats due to the way some land is treated and to the dominance of external influences.

The field-based threats reside mainly in excessive intensification, which continued after the main phase of agricultural yield gain, 1960-1990, but with very little further increase in yield. The result was accelerating disruption of the essential cycles of energy and matter (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, etc.), leading to soil degradation, loss of functional biodiversity, and then loss of pollutants to water and to air as greenhouse gas emissions from both arable and livestock farming.

External influences arise from the pressures to serve national and international markets, ill-thought subsidy regimes and the late 1900s divorce between society and farming. The many consequences of such pressure included a degree of decoupling of much farming from food production, payment for destructive practices, money in the food chain going more to manufacturing and retail than the producer, and the country’s continued reliance on imports to guarantee food security.

Action needed at all scales

The solution required action at a wide range of scales, but the essential scale for future provision of food in decades and centuries to come must be that of the field. Fields must be treated not as an expendable workspace, but acknowledged as a complex ‘organism’, whose health and survival needs constant attention. Degrade the field and land will not feed the people when they next have to rely on it.

The choices may seem stark – but to continue as at present is not an option. There are many examples in Britain and abroad of very well managed land and rural enterprises that turn a profit [5]. One example that repeatedly comes to mind is a small tea plantation in Sri Lanka, visited in the 1991 [6]. The image below shows full ground cover of young tea, planted on mini-contours, shaded by several species and ages of tree. The trees provide shelter from sun and rain and most of them are legumes, fixing nitrogen from the air and otherwise stabilising and enriching the soil.

Contrast that with the field in the inset, not far away, in the same climate and on a similar slope, but ill-managed with no contouring and no cover, ensuring severely eroded soil and virtually no yield. In this case, the terminal state of this farmed land was due to poor management that had its origin in past politics.

The experience with SEDA in 2012 and 2013, including some joint writing with Sam Foster and David Seel, gave me a greater appreciation of ecological design in architecture. The understanding of the sun, the seasons and solar energy is an example – vital to modelling agricultural crops, grass and trees but also to the positioning of buildings and their windows [7].

The influence of architectural design and planning rubbed off onto our own research on design of ecological production systems. It strengthened my view of a system-first or system-led rather than innovation-led approach to the future of food production [8].

Sources / references / links / notes

[1] Presentation at the SEDA Annual General Meeting 2012: Design: crops, biodiversity and fragile ecosystems by G R Squire. Thanks to Mary Kelly for the kind invitation.

[2] SEDA Issue Spring 2013: Soil and Natural Capital. Available to members only. The issues contained articles from several Hutton Institute people including Cathy Hawes and Ed Baxter and also an appreciation of LEAF Linking Environment and Farming by GS. Page 2 of this article, in progress, will give a summary of the talk.

[3] A New Vision for Land Use in Scotland : 6 conversations – more at the Land Conversations pages of the SEDA web site.

[4] Design of arable and grassland systems based on bio-physical principles is far from new, being evident for example in the structuring of rig systems before 1700 and of multi-species grass-legumes mixtures in the 1800s. But by the end of intensification in the 1990s, the functioning and health of many fields in mainstream agriculture had been left to mis-chance, unsafe in the notion that they had been there for a long time and would remain however they were treated. Biophysical design continued to guide various ‘agro-ecological’ farming methods and increasingly does so, but they remain a minority. A well designed field has its main stores (of energy, carbon and plant nutrients) in balance and regulates fluxes between them, such that (for example) offtake is replenished and losses are minimal. Management achieves this by ensuring synergy and coexistence between the microbes, wild plants and invertebrates that determine the integrity of a field and the economic products (crops, grass, livestock) that they periodically sustain.

[5] One of the articles in the SEDA Issue of 2013 was on the early history and principles of LEAF Linking Environment and Farming. The James Hutton Institute, and the Scottish Crop Research Institute before it, was a LEAF Innovation Centre. LEAF is a broad church, with few rigid prescriptions, encouraging farming to move gradually to forms of sustainable management. The UK hosts a range of progressive farming organisations, some of which, including LEAF, will partake in the Land Conversations.

[6] For much of the 1980s and until 1992, self-employment in land use (measurement, assessment, recommendation) paid the bills. A visit to Sri Lanka to appraise some of the research there gave a unique opportunity to see some of the best (and the worst) of land management. But to be fair, the worst of land management can be found in almost any country.

[7] One of the most authoritative and accessible descriptions of the annual solar cycle, including the effects of the earth’s tilt and elliptical orbit round the sun, is given by an architect: Szokolay S.V. 1996 (rev 2007). Solar geometry. Passive and Low Energy Architecture International (PLEA) and Department of Architecture, University of Queensland.

[7] The contrast between innovation-led and system-led approaches to design was debated through EU projects such as AMIGA on environmental risk assessment. The prevailing approach to risk assessment was (and a to a large degree still is) innovation-led. An innovation such as a biotech crop or new crop-protection chemical is examined for its safety, but usually in comparison to current practice within an existing system. Such a comparison came to be considered (in our view) flawed if the existing system was itself not safe, for example if its soils and functional diversity were degrading. Far better then to define an ideal ‘safe’ system first and then consider which innovations would be needed to help move the existing system to this safe state.

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