Did you know university campuses function as everyday ethical infrastructures where multispecies justice is actively formed rather than abstractly debated? University campus context powerfully shapes biodiversity perception and ethical support for multispecies life. This is evident from the on-site surveys we did across three Finnish campuses.

Perceived biodiversity links ecological knowledge and lived experience to moral orientation. Where flora and fauna are visible and encountered, concern for multispecies well-being increases. Rewilded campus landscapes therefore operate as practical sites of learning and ethical transformation. This means that universities can move beyond symbolic sustainability by embedding multispecies cohabitation into campus governance, offering a credible model for more just human–nonhuman relations in urban environments.

University campuses are too often treated as aesthetic backdrops to academic life, yet they are among the most consequential everyday environments in which human-nature relations are learned, normalised, and contested. Within the MUST project, we approached Finnish university campuses not as ornamental or aesthetic assets, but as ethical and ecological infrastructures through which multispecies justice can be enacted in practice. In Fall, 2024, our researchers of architecture at the Tampere University conducted a cross-sectional on-campus survey with 302 users across three Finnish university campuses, including students, staff, and other users.

Biodiversity interventions make multispecies perspectives tangible

The three campuses represent contrasting ecological conditions and built-environment context, with small-scale interventions designed to enhance everyday biodiversity while remaining part of ordinary campus life. The interventions tested how creating biodiversity hotspots and meadow conversions can soften highly managed environments and increase multispecies recognition and interactions.

At Tampere University Hervanta, a technocampus shaped by fragmented-suburban woodland edges and uniform lawns, rewilding focused on diversification through butterfly meadows, dry meadow conversions, shrubs, insect hotels, nest boxes, and decaying tree trunks used as seating and habitat.

At the University of Turku Yliopistonmäki, a dense inner-city campus, interventions prioritised ecological restoration through meadow rehabilitation, invasive species removal, native plantings, and deadwood fencing.

LUT University Skinnarila, embedded within forest and lakeshore systems, emphasised low-intensity measures including reduced mowing, soil and erosion management, berry shrubs, and multifunctional deadwood refuges. All three campus rewilding interventions were carried out in collaboration with University Properties Finland Ltd.

Moving beyond symbolic sustainability towards material co-liveability

Rewilding initiatives within these institutional settings promote spontaneous vegetation, foster non-human agency, and enable ecological succession and the flourishing of multispecies communities. This approach fundamentally challenges the normative assumptions regarding the intended beneficiaries of campus design. The MUST project empirically and ethically investigates this critical question across the three distinct campus environments, highlighting the significant role of place.

Given this background, we examined how campus context, urban greening knowledge, species recognition, observed flora and fauna, outdoor activity, and perceived biodiversity relate to support for multispecies justice.

Drawing on Value–Belief–Norm theory and social identity approaches, the survey study brought together questions of biodiversity perception, species knowledge, everyday nature experience, and ethical orientation. The measures captured perceived vegetation quantity alongside ethical positions concerning multispecies rights and human-non-human priorities, in order to predict perceived biodiversity and support for multispecies justice.

Universities can offer a vision of cities shared with nature

Our preliminary results indicate that the campus context consistently supported both perceived biodiversity and formed multispecies justice orientations. Perceived biodiversity was higher on some campuses and was positively associated with animal-related knowledge, while plant knowledge, species observed, and rewilding project awareness showed weaker or non-significant associations. Support for multispecies justice was associated with campus context, plant knowledge, and species observations, with perceived biodiversity partially mediating relationships between knowledge and ethics.

Our findings suggest that biodiversity perception functions as a key appraisal mechanism linking ecological knowledge and lived campus experience to ethical support for multispecies well-being, consistent with norm activation and place-based social identity perspectives.

The MUST project demonstrates that institutional landscapes can move beyond symbolic sustainability toward material co-liveability. By embedding biodiversity enhancement through rewilding within campus landscape governance, universities acknowledge plants and animals as legitimate co-inhabitants rather than passive scenery.

This shift carries implications beyond Finland. If universities can model multispecies justice within their own grounds, they offer a credible vision of cities not merely sustained by nature, but shared with it.

Text: Himansu Sekhar Mishra, Postdoctoral researcher, Tampere University
Pictures: Laura Uimonen, Postdoctoral researcher, Tampere University