Maxwell Ayamba has contributed to the key findings of a report published by The Kent Downs AONB unit that looked at improving access to AONB (Areas of Natural Beauty) and rural and farmland spaces.

With the recent issues faced by diverse groups of people from urban spaces when they visited  green and blue spaces after the 1st and 2nd UK wide lockdown, the reports findings are both timely and relevant.

You can read the full report here.

Maxwell Ayamba of SEM recentrly contributed to ‘Out of Bounds – Equity in access to urban nature” a national report published in May 2021. Produced by Groundwork, the multi agency report is an “overview of the evidence on equity in urban green spaces”. This important report, like the work of SEM, makes critical connections between social justice and public spaces, community cohesion and health inequalities.

The report provides more evidence of the need and benefits of improving access to public ‘green’ spaces (parks, nature reserves, community gardens, city farms, and woodland) and public ‘blue’ spaces (rivers, lakes, ponds, canals and the sea), for disadvantaged communities.

You can read the report on the Groundwork website.

Groundwork is a federation of charities working locally and nationally to transform lives in the UK’s most disadvantaged communities.

Maxwell will be one of the keynote speakers at “Whose Landscapes?” a national symposium organised by the University of Reading on Tuesday March 30th

Whose Landscapes?: a virtual interdisciplinary symposium hosted by the Changing Landscapes Research Network – its a free online symposium any anyone can attend.

The symposium will explore diversity, in terms of both the extent of accessibility for different groups of people and landscape decision-making, with an aim to develop conversations and build interdisciplinary bridges. The focus of the Changing Landscapes, Changing Lives project is to explore biographical and narrative perspectives to the landscape and this approach has the potential to open up our understanding of landscape to a wider range of voices.

Please register for the symposium via Eventbrite.