Here at the BES we’re dedicated to ensuring we publish across the full breadth of ecology. The discipline is evolving all the time and is increasingly reaching beyond traditional its boundaries and recognising the interplay with many other fields of research, often themselves more directly focused on people.
Our five established journals, Functional Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology, Journal of Applied Ecology, Journal of Ecology and Methods in Ecology and Evolution are world-renowned and publish outstanding research in their fields. However, over a year or so of investigation and debate it became clear that there was space for a new addition to the portfolio.
With a stellar editorial board led by Editor-in-Chief Kevin Gaston and Lead Editors Kai Chan, Robert Fish, Rosemary Hails and Cecily Maller, People and Nature opened for submissions in June, to an overwhelmingly supportive reception from ecologists and non-ecologists alike. The scope of the journal is broad – we’re open access and publish work from across research areas exploring relationships between humans and nature. We want to reach beyond the traditional BES audience to bring in researchers from all sorts of disciplines that interact with ecology.
The submissions so far and the level of excitement the journal has generated have surpassed our expectations and we look forward to publishing our first issue with great fanfare early next year.
Message from the Editor-in-Chief
So, you have a great idea for a new paper. It looks at some aspect of the interactions between people and nature. It will have some ecological relevance, but may not be a pure ecology paper. It will also have a good bit of material drawn from one or more other disciplines – it could be economics, geography, history, law, literature, medicine, philosophy, politics, psychology, or sociology, to name just a few possibilities. But it is not a mainstream paper for one of those disciplines either. So, where will you submit your latest contribution? You will want a journal that not just considers outputs from this kind of cross/multi/interdisciplinary work, but really values them. You will want one that understands both the importance of your paper being promptly and fairly handled by people who are knowledgeable about the topic, and that takes seriously the challenges that can arise when reviewing work that crosses disciplinary specialisms. You will want one backed by a respected organisation, with a track record of publishing high quality journals.
Welcome to People and Nature – a journal of relational thinking.
The British Ecological Society is launching this new journal in recognition of the rapid growth in inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary research concerning the relationships between humans and nature. Much of this research addresses issues of vital importance.
We look forward to receiving your submissions.
Kevin Gaston – Editor-in-Chief People and Nature
Relational Thinking 