CAWR Newsletter

February 2026

Our monthly newsletters are an easy way to keep up-to-date with new developments at our research centre. From successful project bids to upcoming events, our newsletter informs you on how we are 'driving innovative transdisciplinary research on equitable, sustainable and resilient food and water systems.'

The views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the contributors at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Coventry University.

CAWR joins the EU AGROECOLOGY Partnership

Coventry University  has joined AGROECOLOGY Partnership, a collaboration between 111 organisations to accelerate the transition of farming systems to agroecology through Living Labs (LLs) and Research Infrastructures (RIs). The €300m Partnership will be active until December 2033, and with a €5.2m budget, CAWR researchers are working throughout the Partnership and leading work to scale up joint activities co-created by members of the Network of LLs and RIs across Europe and worldwide.   

In late January, Ulrich Schmutz, Judith Conroy and Julia Stew attended the Partnership’s Executive Team meeting in Lyon, where they were part of exchanges to develop a shared ambition: turning strategic frameworks into concrete, coordinated actions to accelerate agroecological transitions. 

From the 19th-21st of January, Julia Wright joined over 40 other existing and new partners of Work Package 7 of the AGROECOLOGY Partnership, in an unusually cold and rainy Athens. This Work Package aims to expand the capacities of Living Labs and Research Infrastructure across Europe. Julia presented Coventry as a Living Lab and as well as CAWR’s conceptual and methodological contribution to developing the Agroecological Knowledge and Innovation System by including nature as a primary stakeholder.  

Impact News - 'working for change'

Photo Credit Donna Oldbury-Thomas

Welsh Mountain Equine Rescue – Ensuring Legacy, genetic Identity and continuing Nature based solutions (MERLIN)

Donna and Judith have won Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) IAA (impact funding) Rapid Response funding to carry out genetic analysis of wild-foaled Welsh Mountain ponies. Using native Welsh Mountain ponies in conservation grazing, alongside strategic firebreak creation, offers a powerful nature‑based solution to reduce wildfire risk, restore biodiversity, and support rural livelihoods. Yet this approach depends on the survival of our near‑extinct wild‑foaled Welsh Mountain pony. This ESRC funding will enable the first comprehensive genetic analysis of this critically threatened population—evidence essential for securing Rare Breeds Survival Trust protection. This scientific work is a direct pathway to social, environmental, and cultural impact, safeguarding both the ponies and the landscape‑management benefits they bring.

ESRC funded Bracken Bashing with Ponies already Shows Major Fire Behaviour Benefits

Donna, Jeremy and Pete visiting Carmel National Nature Reserve

In February, Donna Oldbury Thomas met with Jeremy Turner of Mid Wales Fire and Rescue Service to revisit the area at Carmel National Nature Reserve where Jupiter the pony and Pete from Torcoed Traction carried out bracken bashing last June. The reserve contains a mix of woodland and meadow, and the contrast between treated and untreated areas was striking. Bashed bracken was reduced to around 20 to 30 cm, while unbashed stands remained at 100 to 150 cm. On steep and stony ground that cannot be accessed by tractors or quad mounted equipment, Pete and Jupiter still managed to treat twenty acres in five days using an old, upside down tractor tyre.

Jeremy highlighted the operational importance of this work. Lower vegetation height is likely to produce flames of about one metre, allowing crews to work safely with beaters and blowers. Taller bracken flames can exceed one and a half metres, forcing the service to rely on all-terrain vehicles, helicopters or even to avoid intervention. Different vegetation heights also burn at different temperatures. We do not yet know how this affects the toxic emissions from bracken, and we are currently seeking funding to investigate this further.

Participants at the Green for all Project Launch, 27 January 2026, at the former Anglican Chapel, London Road Cemetery, Coventry

Green for All Project Launch

Liz Trenchard, Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz and Jana Fried attended the launch of the ‘Green for All’ project on the 27th January 2026. Green for All is a three year project funded by the Nature in Towns and Cities Programme, led by Coventry City Council. The project’s vision is to eradicate green deprivation in Coventry. The launch event at the restored Anglican Chapel, London Road Cemetery, Coventry, included presentations by representatives of all Green for All project partners including CAWR.

Liz Trenchard presenting an overview of CAWRs two Green for All projects at the launch event

Research collaboration at the Biodynamic Agriculture Conference of the Goetheanum, Switzerland 

From 4-7 February, the Goetheanum held its annual biodynamic agriculture conference, this year with the theme: You Never Farm Alone. Julia Wright gave two presentations, firstly at the pre-conference meeting of biodynamic researchers where she gave highlights from the 2025 International Biodynamic Research Conference that had taken place in the UK, and secondly in the closing plenary panel on ‘Building Communities of Research and Knowledge’.

Coventry University at IPBES 12th Plenary 

Coventry University recently obtained observer status to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) through an initiative of CAWR’s  Biodiversity, Ecology and Society cluster. More than 150 countries are members of IPBES (the USA recently left) which works to improve communication between science and policy on issues of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz, Alex Franklin and James Bennett attended the stakeholder day and the opening of the 12th IPBES Plenary. They also presented the OneSTOP and DAISY projects to this global audience.

Invited Commentary in The Conversation on the UK’s First National PFAS Strategy

CAWR's Ivan Kourtchev was invited by The Conversation to comment on the UK’s first national strategy on PFAS. 

The full commentary, “How the UK government plans to limit ‘forever chemical’ pollution – and what’s missing”, was published on 5 February 2026.

Events

March 5th - SEMINAR - Blocking media – is there a peat-free solution? with Francis Rayns, Judith Conroy, Leonardo Faedo, Ulrich Schmutz, Margi Lennartsson.

March 26th - SEMINAR - SCALE-it: empowering farmers to improve organic systems with Leonardo Faedo, Ulrich Schmutz, Adrian Evans and Judith Conroy

April 22nd - SEMINAR - Planting Liberation: Black Urban Ecology and Food Justice with Ruqaiyah Jarviton

April 29th - SEMINAR - Reframing Innovation: Decolonial, Feminist and Indigenous Pathways to Ecological Transition (CAWR PhD Showcase)with Lucas Worsdell, Catarina Angioni, and Katie Mills

Catch up on our events and seminars by visiting our YouTube channel

Publications

Peyton, J. M., Rorke, S., Aldridge, D. C., Pescott, O. L., Dehnen‐Schmutz, K., Noble, D. G., ... & Roy, H. E. (2026). Assessing the success of a horizon scanning approach in predicting invasive non‐native species arrival. Journal of Applied Ecology, 63(1), e70217. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.70217

Verdi, R., Faedo, L.F., Scherr, C., Wright, J., Rayns, F. and Boff, P. (2025) Bioassay of rice (Oryza sativa L.) seedlings in response to dynamized high dilutions of Calcarea carbonica and Silicea terra. Int J High Dilution Res. 2025; 25(CF): 402-416. http://doi.org/10.51910/ijhdr.v25icf.1719

Kelley, D. et al. (inc. Eden, J.M.) (2025) State of Wildfires 2024-25, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 5377-5488. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-483

Gallo, C., Dieppois, D., Quilcaille, Y., Chiriacò, M.V., Drobyshev, I., Fulé, P.Z., San-Miguel-Ayanz, J., Blackett, M. and Eden, J.M.  (2025) Future impacts of climate change on global fire weather: Insight from weighted CMIP6 multi-model ensembles, J. Climate, 38, 6445–6462. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-24-0540.1

Viera-Arroyo, W.; Binego, L.; Rayns, F.; López, D.; Moya, M.; Vera, L.; Caicedo, C. (2025). Systematic Review of Integrating Technology for Sustainable Agricultural Transitions: Ecuador, a Country with Agroecological Potential. Sustainability 2025, 17, 6053. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17136053

Mariki SB and Binego L (2025). Conflicting interests over natural resource use: the case of interactions among livestock keepers, farmers, and wildlife at Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. Front. Sustain. Resour. Manag. 4:1650915. Doi: 10.3389/fsrma.2025.1650915 [URL: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsrma.2025.1650915 ]

Worsdell, L. S., Maughan, C., Wright, J., Hill-Butler, C., & Félix, G. F. (2025). Has agroecology lost the plot? The fracture between science, movement, and practice in the Insular Caribbean. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2025.2584306

Gallo Granizo, G., Bacciu, V., Eden, J.M., Hernández Paredes, E., García Feced, C., Bedhiaf, S., Oom, D., Goldammer, J.G., Dieppois, B., Belen, İ., Mitri, G., Turhan, Ü., Ascoli, D., Alfonso, L. and San-Miguel-Ayanz, J. (2025) Fire Management in the Mediterranean Region, In: The status of the Mediterranean forests 2025, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 156pp. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd6921en

Giannitsopoulos, M.L., Burgess, P.J., Graves, A.R., Olave, R., Eden, J.M. and Herzog, F. (2025). Predicted yield and soil organic carbon changes in grassland, arable, woodland, and agroforestry systems under climate change in a cool temperate Atlantic climate, Agron. Sustain. Dev. 45, 26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-025-01020-7

Smith Khanna, P. (2025). Buen Vivir as fertile soil for ecological masculinities: learning from gardening men in Cali, Colombia. NORMA, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2025.2576329 

Dehnen-Schmutz, K, Adekola, OE, Jones, TS (2025): Testing the feasibility of citizen science to record impacts of invasive alien plants. Ecological Solutions and Evidence 6(3): e70121. https://doi.org/10.1002/2688-8319.70121

Pathania D., Venkatesan S., Kourtchev I., McKenzie M., Bogush A., Mackay G., Lampugnani E., Ristovski Z., Zare A., Stevanovic S. Pollen hydration and its induced effects on human bronchial epithelial cells: a comparative analysis of three species. Science of the Total Environment 2025 1002, 180665  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.180665  

Berger, I., Pannure, A., Harris, A., Basu, P., Smith, B. and Dicks, L.V., (2025) Agroecological Cashew Cultivation Increases Pollinator Abundance, Diversity and Flower Visitation Rates, with Potential Yield Benefits. Agriculture Ecosystems and Environment. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2025.110006

Berger, I., Kamble, A., Morton, O., Raj, V., Nair, S.R., Edwards, D.P., Wauchope, H.S., Joshi, V., Basu, P., Smith, B. and Dicks, L.V., 2025. India’s agroecology programme,‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’, delivers biodiversity and economic benefits without lowering yields. Nature Ecology & Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-025-02849-7

Wood, T.J., Patiny, S., Dutta, A., Laha, S., Smith, B., Basu, P. and Roberts, S.P., 2025. Camptopoeum paruii sp. n., the first species of Camptopoeum described from India (Hymenoptera: Andrenidae). Journal of Natural History, 59(33-36), pp.2143-2154.

Bacher S, Ryan-Colton E, Coiro M, Cassey P, Galil BS, Nuñez MA, Ansong M, Dehnen-Schmutz K, Fayvush G, Fernandez RD, Hiremath AJ et al. (2025): Global Impacts Dataset of Invasive Alien Species (GIDIAS). Scientific data12:832. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-05184-5

Eluri, A., Gates, W., Callahan, D., Charlesworth, S. M. and Kourtchev, I., Pyrolysis gas chromatography high resolution mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS) method for analysis of phthalic acid esters and its application for screening e-waste materials. Anal. Methods, 2025, DOI: 10.1039/D5AY00987A

Kourtchev, I., McGillen, M. R., Wenger, J., Donahue, N. M. Rethinking environmental boundaries for contaminants of emerging concern. Atmos. Environ. 2025, 361, 121492. DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2025.121492

Diop, S. B., Ekolu, J., Tramblay, Y., Dieppois, B., Grimaldi, S., Bodian, A., Blanchet, J., Rameshwaran, P., Salamon, P., and Sultan, B. (2025) Climate change impacts on floods in West Africa: New insight from two large-scale hydrological models.  Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. In-press. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-130