A former Lancaster University PhD student has won the first Rachel Carson Prize for an early career researcher, awarded by the journal of the British Ecological Society

Dr Beth Brockett, who now works as a Senior Specialist in Social Science for Natural England, won the Prize for a journal article based on her PhD research, published last year in the journal People and Nature. Her research used an innovative combination of methods to examine how to encourage the take up of ‘soil carbon farming’ - increasing the amount of carbon in farming soils by, for example, planting trees or rewetting previously drained land. This both reduces the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and improves soil health.

“Often when conducting research to identify soil carbon farming opportunities we rely exclusively on natural science methods to assess whether conditions are suitable,” said Beth. “Our study illustrates that we need to understand and take account of both human and environmental conditions together if environmental management initiatives, such as soil carbon farming, are to be successful. For example, land manager willingness and their ability to engage with the initiative should be examined alongside existing soil properties.”

Beth created soil carbon farming maps, using a range of different methods to collect data. This included collecting farmers’ knowledge of their land, via walking interviews, and surveying soil properties.

It showed that some carbon management interventions are considered as bad farming practice, and increased soil carbon is correlated with increased incidents of livestock disease by some farmers.

“It is vital that we understand farmers’ hopes, fear, ideas and opinions regarding soil carbon practices if we are to encourage better soil carbon management,” said Beth, who has previously used her expertise to advise on land management for Sites of Special Scientific Interest and agri-environment schemes for Natural England. More recently she has been providing specialist insight to support development of the new Environmental Land Management programme.

The Rachel Carson Prize was awarded for the first time this year and is named after the famous conservationist and author, who wrote Silent Spring, which is credited for helping to launch modern day environmentalism. The Prize is given to the lead author of the best paper in the British Ecological Society journal People and Nature written by an author at the start of their research career.

Yvonne Buckley, the Associate Editor of the journal, said: “This paper exemplifies the approach of People and Nature, it demonstrates the importance of investigating the ecological and social aspects of carbon farming together. The benefits of the integrated ‘mixed methods’ approach to mapping carbon are clearly articulated, in particular the tensions between qualitative and quantitative findings were a rich opportunity for new insights. Scientific breakthroughs are often made when tensions between previously held beliefs or hypotheses are confronted with new data or new ways of looking at the world.”

“It is heartening to see truly interdisciplinary environmental research celebrated through the creation of the Rachel Carson award,” said Beth. “I am delighted to be the first recipient, thank you People and Nature”.

Doing interdisciplinary research for a PhD was not easy, says Beth, despite the mission of the Lancaster Environment Centre to combine social and natural science.

“I don’t think that academia has made space for truly interdisciplinary research. I both loved, and occasionally loathed, the challenge of doing an interdisciplinary PhD. But overall I really enjoyed the intellectual and practical challenges of creating a coherent piece of work which drew from different disciplinary traditions.”

Beth will be given her prize at the British Ecological Society (BES) Annual meeting later this year, and also receives £250 and membership of the BES.

Read Beth’s winning paper, Guiding Carbon Farming using interdisciplinary mixed methods mapping. Other authors of the paper include Dr Mike Whitfield, Dr Nigel Watson and Professor Alan Blackburn from Lancaster University and Professor Richard Bardgett and Dr Alison Browne from the University of Manchester.