James Weldon

James Weldon is a human geographer interested in nature-society relations and the societal and cultural responses to changes in our 'natural' spaces. He is currently studying the social and cultural dimensions of the restoration of treescapes from disease. His UK-based research focuses on the efforts to breed, return and preserve elm trees and the ecological and cultural response to ash dieback. He is investigating what specifically these conservation efforts are trying to conserve/preserve, why the loss of trees matters to those involved in their conservation, and how environmental management is shaped by perceptions of what species belong where and how treescapes 'should' look.

James is currently an ESRC-funded PhD researcher at Cardiff University. Prior to that he completed an MSc in Social Science Research Methods at Cardiff University and MA in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. Outside of academia, James has worked on an ecological restoration site and as a trainee librarian.