Citizen-led land and river stewardship so often feels impossible under current systems of ownership, governance, and access. In a context where land is fragmented, privatised, and regulated through opaque legal and bureaucratic frameworks, communities face not only material barriers, but also relational ones: gaps in trust, knowledge, power, and coordination between residents, grass roots organisations and power holders (private and institutional landowners, councils, and funders).
The EcoLandS project foregrounds stewardship not simply as a set of practices, but as a relational capacity: something that must be cultivated through shared understanding and dialogue across diverse stakeholder groups. For this one year project, we worked with illustrator, Joey Yu, and Surge Co-operative to develop an illustrated narrative series. These illustrations trace the story of Surge’s stewardship journey along The Channelsea River, revealing the legal, ecological, social, and emotional complexities involved. The illustrations aim to bring the invisible labour of stewardship to light, showing how these practices actually unfold through negotiation, uncertainty, care, conflict, and collaboration. Combined with a set of case study success stories and a selection of key terms we discovered through our research, the illustrated series forms a storytelling resource that aims to sensemake the complexities of citizen-led land and river stewardship, support learning and build legitimacy.