Publications

Nature Seminar Series. Nature Positive – fact or fiction? Joe Bull, University of Oxford

Biodiversity loss is one of the great global challenges of our time. If we are ever to address and ultimately reverse biodiversity loss, we must face the difficult truth that amongst its most substantial drivers are consumption and trade. As such, to arrest declines in biodiversity, we may all have to change the way we live and do business.

The idea of ‘Nature Positive’ builds on decades of scientific work and hard-fought environmental policy gains, and suggests that we can: (a) quantify the direct and indirect impacts of organisations on biodiversity; (b) substantially reduce those impacts; and, (c) reverse them, to the extent that we begin to see global biodiversity recovery. It is a great narrative – but is it fundamentally a fiction, or do the facts suggest it might actually be possible? In this talk, I will explore this question empirically, from the perspective of working right on the boundary between academia and industry.

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.

Nature Seminar Series. The role of the carbon sink in recovering degraded & secondary forest across the tropics. Viola Heinrich

In this talk Dr. Viola Heinrich discusses how tropical forests play a key role in climate change mitigation. Recovering, degraded and secondary forests are becoming more dominant in tropical landscapes and yet large uncertainties exist regarding their carbon sink and storage. Starting in the Brazilian Amazon, this talk explores how a variety of satellite datasets can be used to improve the spatial representation of the carbon sink in recovering forests. By combining satellite-based datasets of secondary forest age and aboveground carbon, she explains how the carbon accumulation can be modelled according to different environmental variables and disturbances. These disturbances were found to drive spatially distinct regrowth patterns, with repeated anthropogenic disturbances reducing regrowth by up to 55%. Expanding this approach across the major tropical regions, the second half of the talk introduces the regional carbon recovery in degraded and secondary forests across the Amazon, Central Africa, and Borneo. Between 1984 and 2018 recovering forests offset a quarter of carbon emissions from tropical forest loss, indicating the mitigation potential of protecting them, alongside old-growth forest conservation.

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.

Nature Seminar Series. The new Global Biodiversity Framework the good, the bad and the narratives. Sandra Diaz

In December 2022, the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity enshrined the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). This policy instrument will structure all the global intergovernmental action on biodiversity during the next ten years. It is thus bound to have massive influence on what will be done (or not) in this field. I will discuss how the GBF has incorporated the scientific evidence, whether it means a step forward with respect to its predecessor (the Aichi Targets), and some constraints and opportunities posed by it. I will also discuss how different social narratives about nature and people came into play during the construction of the GBF.

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.

Nature Seminar Series. The Wildlife Trust’s action for nature and climate: priorities and challenges – Kathryn Brown

Kathryn Brown spoke about the 2030 Strategy for the Wildlife Trusts, which focusses on action for nature and climate to achieve three goals by 2030: nature in recovery, people taking meaningful action, and nature playing a role in addressing global challenges including climate change.

She highlighted some of the most innovative nature-based solutions projects happening across the Trusts, who collectively are one of the UK’s top ten landholders. Kathryn also reflected on the biggest evidence challenges for The Wildlife Trusts to monitor and evaluate progress and achieve their goals.

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.

Nature Seminar Series. A future for nature: Quantitative perspectives on land & biodiversity under global change-Tom Harwood

Our understanding of nature is incomplete, and nowhere is this more evident than when faced with the challenge of maintaining a viable natural world under the dual pressures of land use and climate change. Differing values and ad hoc solutions risk an incoherent and piecemeal response, with nebulous consequences. We need clearly defined measures of state, consequences and change framed within globally consistent world-views to effectively plan for the future. Tom will present one possible approach using examples from the past decade of his work with colleagues at CSIRO in Australia, using community to metacommunity models of biodiversity in combination with new approaches to remotely sense land use and habitat condition. These allow us to consider impacts of land use and climate change in units of species loss at fine resolution over large extents. We can potentially use this information to support spatially explicit adaptation planning in combination with other approaches and values systems. There will be minimal equations but lots of diagrams and interesting (if sometimes a bit frightening) maps.

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.

Nature Seminar Series. Connected Conservation, rethinking conservation for a telecoupled world – Rachel Carmenta

Rachel’s talk will introduce Connected Conservation: a dual-branched conservation model that calls for the conservation community to embrace novel actions to tackle distant wealth-related drivers of biodiversity decline, while enhancing site-level conservation to empower biodiversity stewards. She will give an overview of the diverse literatures that outline the need for this shift in conservation practice and show how centres of tropical biodiversity – a major focus of conservation efforts, tend to be delivered in predominantly site-level interventions, often incorporating alternative-livelihood provision or poverty-alleviation components. Yet, a focus on site-level intervention is ill-equipped to address the disproportionate role of (often distant) wealth in biodiversity collapse. Further site-level approaches often attempt to ‘resolve’ local economic poverty in order to safeguard biodiversity in a seemingly virtuous act, risking overlooking local communities as the living locus of multiple solutions to the biodiversity crisis. Connected Conservation counters this conventional model, and instead works to enhance and amplify those flows and values consonant with nature, and disrupt and diminish the negative flows stemming from centres of wealth that are largely responsible for environmental decline. Examples from the tropical fire context will be used to illustrate the need for Connected Conservation, and your thoughts on how to orchestrate actions in concert across scales to tackle interconnected conservation challenges will be 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.

Nature Seminar Series. 40 years of conservation in Sabah – Glyn Davies

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.

Nature Seminar Series. Results based payments and REDD+ safeguards – Daniela Rey Christen

Results based payments and REDD+ safeguards: Challenges for demonstrating and verifying the social and environmental integrity of Verified Emission Reductions at jurisdictional scale Billions of dollars of results-based financing for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) at jurisdictional and project scales are expected to be delivered over the next 5 years through voluntary carbon markets or results-based payments (RBP) schemes such as the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) Carbon Fund ($700m committed to 15 countries), the Green Climate Fund’s (GCF) REDD+ Results-based Payments Pilot Programme ($500m already transferred to GCF Accredited Entities for 8 countries), and Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance (LEAF) Coalition ($1bn pledged, 5 signed Letters of Intent, and 30 applicants to date). However, jurisdictions face challenges on multiple fronts in order to access market and non-market results-based finance for REDD+. One key challenge is being to demonstrate conformance with REDD safeguard requirements. For over a decade we have worked to identify and address the challenges faced by jurisdictions in conforming with REDD safeguards and also with standard bodies, funds and donors on the challenges of verifying conformance.

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.

Nature Seminar Series. Cities in Nature Transforming Singapore into a City in Nature – Lena Chan

The talk a) showcases some cities that have incorporated biodiversity conservation successfully, b) shares how the National Parks Board of Singapore (NParks) implements its City in Nature vision and c) illustrates how NParks identifies problems, crafts specific problem statements, works with the scientific community to design research projects that seek nature-based solutions, interprets the data, translates the results to policies, operationalises the recommendations on the ground and devises evaluation and monitoring programmes – all in one government agency collaborating in an interdisciplinary manner and comprehensively with multi-governmental agencies, academic community, and the public (NGOs, citizen scientists, etc.).

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.

Nature Seminar Series. Holistic Management: Claims are not supported but are there social lessons to be learnt?

Heidi Hawkins – 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.

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.

Nature Seminar Series. The recovery of ecosystem complexity in a changing environment. David Moreno Mateos

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 discusses the traditional methods used to assess the recovery of terrestrial ecosystems—such as changes in biodiversity or soil carbon levels, highlighting their limitations. He makes a case for more comprehensive & long-term approaches to understanding & measuring ecosystem recovery, highlighting their potential for enhancing environmental policies & large-scale restoration strategies.

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.

Nature Seminar Series. In search of the holy grail – the one true biodiversity metric. E.J. Milner-Gulland

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.

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.