Over the past half decade, the UK has set a net zero goal and nature restoration targets, both of which require very substantial land use change. However, the UK uses 70% of its land surface, and an equivalent area overseas, to produce the food we eat. On the face of it, the UK is headed for land use conflict, and it is not alone: most countries face the same climate-nature-food challenge.
This talk, which draws on analysis done for in the National Food Strategy and subsequent work done at Green Alliance, a leading UK environmental think tank, will show how land use in the UK and other European countries can change to give us everything we want from land, and what trade-offs policymakers will have to make to enable land to change rapidly enough to meet our goals.
Background
I was the chief analytical advisor for Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy, and, with my team, have subsequently built a set of land use models that allow us to construct scenarios that meet net zero, restore nature to different levels, meet dietary and import/export preferences, model bioenergy demand, and quantify the costs of doing it all.
The lecture will be followed by an drinks reception and everyone is welcome
The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and Biodiversity Network are interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within this lecture are those of the author alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery/Biodiversity Network, or its researchers.
Abstract:
Our global food system is poised for transformation; with the goal increasingly to ensure diets are healthy and sustainable. Fish and other aquatic foods are afforded an increasingly prominent role in this new narrative, primarily for their comparably low greenhouse gas emissions and rich micronutrient content. While a refocus towards healthy and sustainable diets is needed, it is imperative that efforts do not create or exacerbate inequities. In this talk, I first explore the role of aquatic foods in this transformation, and establish how distal drivers of foreign fishing, international trade, and climate change undermine the participation of small-scale producers and local consumers. Next, and drawing on theories of Social Justice I establish how social structures including class, gender, and ethnicity, create barriers to participation and explain unequal distributions of benefits. Finally, I evaluate whether patterns of injustice are associated with a lack of political voice or recognition in food systems policy. In doing so, I identify promising examples of how policy can be used to support a more equitable distribution of food system benefits.
Biography:
Professor Christina Hicks is an interdisciplinary social scientist and marine conservationist who examines the interactions between humans and marine environments. Based at Lancaster University, UK, she works on fisheries governance and conservation, fisheries nutrition, and food justice, with a focus on coastal East and West Africa. She is currently working in three core areas: 1) Examining the contributions fisheries make to human nutrition under social and environmental change; 2) Establishing how flows of finance drive fisheries overexploitation to identify policy responses; 3) Supporting just and sustainable food systems transitions. Christina is a Highly cited Researcher, her work has been published widely, including in Nature and Science, has featured in documentaries, including on the BBC world service, and has received grants and awards including from the European Research Council, Leverhulme Trust, and Royal Geographical Society
Abstract
Rewilding has emerged as a novel approach for nature recovery gaining momentum across Europe. Drawing from my dual experience as a rewilding researcher and practitioner, I will offer insights into the connection between scientific research and practical implementation of rewilding initiatives across the continent. I will present key obstacles to rewilding that necessitate concerted efforts and cooperation among practitioners, scientists, and policymakers and propose research and policy agendas to advance rewilding at scale in Europe.
Biography
Sophie Monsarrat is a rewilding scientist and practitioner, with previous experience working on large terrestrial mammal ecology in South African and European landscapes. After 9 years in academia, she joined Rewilding Europe to help support the rewilding movement in Europe. As Rewilding Manager, she oversees the wildlife comeback, natural grazing and coexistence programs across Rewilding Europe’s landscapes. She also manages the European Wildlife Comeback Fund, which supports keystone species reintroductions across Europe.
The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and Biodiversity Network are interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within this lecture are those of the author alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery/Biodiversity Network, or its researchers.
There is much excitement about ‘nature recovery’, with many scientists, conservation practitioners and commentators having opinions about how this might be achieved. While many focus on single solutions, such as ecological restoration, rewilding, land sparing, etc, effective recovery will likely involve ‘pick and mix’ approaches that match local needs and national priorities. I will talk about how we can combine rewilding, restoration and agroecological approaches to give pragmatic solutions for recovery. But, we should not ignore massive constraints on nature recovery, such as extinction debt, fragmented landscapes and loss of ecological complexity. In particular, many discussions on recovery do not engage with the fact that rapid climate change will undermine what can be achieved and will be driving ongoing species loss. Indeed, climate change demands that we re-think conservation aims and approaches, and even how we promote nature recovery. I will talk about our concept of ‘Survival Ecology’ as a way of re-conceptualising conservation in a time of anthropogenic climate change.
Biography
James is a conservation ecologist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, with a long history of fundamental and applied research into ecological restoration, rewilding, and agri-ecological management. He is dedicated both to understanding ecological processes in complex, real-world situations, and translating this into solutions for nature recovery that are pragmatic and effective. To do so he also works across disciplines, with, e.g., climate scientists, social scientists and geographers.
The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and Biodiversity Network are interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within this lecture are those of the author alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery/Biodiversity Network, or its researchers.
The impact of plants on ecosystem functioning is mediated by mycorrhizas, intimate plant-fungal associations formed by most plants and a diverse subset of soil fungi. Mycorrhizal fungi play a key role in terrestrial ecosystems by enhancing plant access to soil nutrients and water but also as regulators of the carbon cycle. However, these belowground fungi are affected by environmental and anthropogenic changes, with potential consequences on the roles they develop in our ecosystems. In this seminar, I will talk about the main drivers and threats of ectomycorrhizal fungal communities in forests, the impact of changes in these communities in forest functioning and the research we are doing to measure, understand and predict the contribution of different mycorrhizal fungi to carbon sequestration in soils for habitat ecosystem assessment.
Biography
I am a Senior Research Leader in Mycology at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. I have a strong interest in fungal ecology, particularly in the mycorrhizal symbiosis with a focus on ectomycorrhizal fungi in forests. I am interested in 1) the drivers of change of ectomycorrhizal fungi in forests and the consequences of changes in these fungi for forest functioning and resilience, 2) the role of mycorrhizal fungi in soil carbon sequestration and, 3) mycorrhizal fungi as indicators of soil health for ecosystem assessment. The cryptic, below-ground growth of these fungi has been an obstacle to our understanding of them despite their pivotal role in terrestrial ecosystems. In general, my research involves the application of molecular methods, which largely overcomes this obstacle, to address fundamental biological and ecological questions.
Biography
Miles Richardson is a Chartered Psychologist, Chartered Ergonomist and Professor of Human Factors and Nature Connectedness at the University of Derby. He founded the award winning Nature Connectedness Research Group which aims to understand and improve connection with nature to unite both human and nature’s wellbeing. The group works closely with Natural England and its work has been adopted by many organisations, including the National Trust, RSPB and 2021 Mental Health Awareness week. Miles is also the creator of the award winning ‘biodiversity stripes’ and a lead author on the ‘Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ (IPBES) global transformative change assessment. His book Reconnection: Fixing our Broken Relationship with Nature was published April 2023.
The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery and Biodiversity Network are interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within this lecture are those of the author alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, the Biodiversity Network, or their researchers.
Abstract:
Signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Global Biodiversity Framework promised to work towards halting and reversing the loss of biodiversity by 2030 – a bold mission, and one which has a plethora of sub-targets and indicators associated with it. How these indicators will scale from local to global and how they can be aggregated to track progress, let alone guide action, is an open question. Further, there is an increasing push towards Nature Positive at the organisational level – which also requires metrics to track and report biodiversity impacts, positive and negative, and for the nascent associated biodiversity credits market. Amid this complexity, where is our lodestar target and metric equivalent to 1.5 degrees and tCO2? Is it even feasible to think that such a metric could ever exist for something as spatially and temporally heterogeneous and complex as biodiversity? In this talk I explore these issues and share some ideas about ways forward.
Bio:
Professor Dame E.J. Milner-Gulland is Tasso Leventis Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Oxford. She is Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science in the Department of Biology. EJ works on understanding, predicting and mitigating biodiversity impacts, and monitoring and evaluating conservation interventions for their social and biodiversity outcomes. This includes large programmes on food systems, Nature Positive transitions, the wildlife trade, and social justice and equity. She aims to ensure that all the research in her group is addressing issues identified by practitioners and policy-makers, is carried out collaboratively with end-users, and builds the capacity of early-career conservationists, particularly in low-income countries. She has launched a number of initiatives which aim to change the real-world conversation around conservation, including the Nature-Positive Universities intiative and the Conservation Optimism movement. She is the Chair of the UK Government’s Darwin Expert Committee and a Trustee of WWF-UK.
The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery is interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners. The views, opinions and positions expressed within this lecture are those of the author alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, or its researchers.
How long does it take for an ecosystem to recover after it is disturbed or destroyed by human activities? How do we know when an ecosystem has recovered?
In this lecture, restoration ecologist David Moreno Mateos will discuss the traditional methods used to assess the recovery of terrestrial ecosystems—such as changes in biodiversity or soil carbon levels—and highlight their limitations. He will make a case for more comprehensive and long-term approaches to understanding and measuring ecosystem recovery and highlight their potential for enhancing environmental policies and large-scale restoration strategies.
Biography
David got his PhD from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the University of Alcala, both in Spain with honors (equivalent to summa cum laude) in 2008. He then got postdoctoral fellowships at the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University and the Centre National de la Recherché Scientific (CNRS) in France. He has been awarded an Ikerbasque fellowship from the Basque Country government and a Ramon y Cajal fellowship from the Government of Spain to join the Basque Center for Climate Change, where he is now a Research Professor. David have authored >50 papers in scientific journals and books, including papers in Nature Communications, Nature, PLOS Biology, or Nature Ecology and Evolution.
The lecture will be followed by an drinks reception and everyone is welcome
The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery is interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners. The views, opinions and positions expressed within this lecture are those of the author alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, or its researchers.
The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery is interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners. The views, opinions and positions expressed within this lecture are those of the author alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, or its researchers.
The Savory Institute claims that Holistic Management (HM) increases production of plants and grazing animals while also increasing soil organic carbon under all conditions in all habitats. Claims have been heavily marketed and popularized in the media including via the now-famous TEDTalk. However, peer-review literature, including our meta-analysis, and a recent review focussed on farm-scale studies, do not support these claims. In this talk we will present this evidence, while addressing some of the criticisms levelled against scientific studies by HM supporters. Finally, we will discuss the social dynamics within HM communities and what lessons these might provide.
Supporters of HM criticize small-scale studies (less than 2 ha), reasonably proposing that production and climate benefits only emerge on large working farms (2-66 ha or larger, our size definitions). In response, we reviewed 22 farm-scale studies from across the globe, and the few social and soil carbon studies available. The review supported the findings of previous meta-analyses, i.e., HM’s intensive grazing approach either has no effect or reduces production, thus negating the claim by HM proponents that there is a difference between ‘the science and the practice’. Seven peer-reviewed studies show that the potential for increased carbon sequestration with changed grazing management is substantially less (0.13-0.32) than the 2.5-9 t C ha-1 yr-1 estimated by non-peer-review HM literature. Interestingly, five studies show that HM provides a social support framework for land users. The social cohesion, learning and networking so prevalent on HM farms could be adopted by any farming community without accepting the unfounded HM rhetoric, and governments could allocate funds to train extension agents accordingly. A future focus on collaborative adaptive farm management and other innovations will be more helpful than any further debate about grazing density.
Biography
Heidi’s research interests are in plant physiology, functional ecology, and ecosystem carbon, especially as they relate to conservation efforts in the face of global change. She did her undergraduate studies in South Africa, her home, and obtained a PhD from the University of Hohenheim in Germany where she worked on the contribution on mycorrhizal fungi to plant nutrition. She has worked for many years at the interface of academia and conservation doing action research at Conservation South Africa, while remaining an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Cape Town. She spent some time debunking myths in grazing science and more recently informing carbon offset projects. She was recently part of a team that made the first global estimate of mycorrhizal fungi as a carbon pool. Her vision is to better integrate research with conservation planning and implementation.
