Nature Insight: Speed Dating with the Future

Did you know that there are thousands of undiscovered species of fungi around the world? In Nepal alone, it is estimated we know only 1/10 of all species! What does this knowledge gap mean for science, nature and people? And why do fungi matter? In this episode, Brit speaks to a mushroom scientist from Nepal, Dr. Shiva Devkota, about climbing Mount Everest in search of new species and new knowledge.

To find out more about IPBES, head to www.ipbes.net or follow us on social media @IPBES.

Nature Insight is back for a third season! Join Brit and Rob as they give you behind-the-scenes access to the stories, perspectives and real-world experiences of people from the IPBES community on the frontlines of science policy and action for nature. Subscribe now for your backstage pass to making better choices about protecting all life on earth. Coming soon!

To find out more about IPBES, head to www.ipbes.net or follow us on social media @IPBES.

Nature, through Earth systems, provides almost all the vital infrastructure that we need to live, work, and thrive. Even business health depends on a healthy planet. In this episode, Rob talks to Professor Steve Polasky and Delphine Gluzman to better understand the links between nature and the economy, as well as how we can align our economic activity with nature. Steve is Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics at the University of Minnesota, and has studied the links between nature and the economy for the past 30 years. Delphine is in charge of the environment section at the BNP Paribas Foundation, which currently aims to mobilize six million Euro in financing for the protection of biodiversity and climate change.

To find out more about IPBES, head to www.ipbes.net or follow us on social media @IPBES.

In this episode, we catch up with the work of IPBES experts on the values of nature. Ahead of the publication of the IPBES Values Assessment in July 2022, we explore what those values are, why we should bother trying to understand them, and how we can pull all these different perspectives together into actions to protect nature and biodiversity.

This week’s guests are Professor Patty Balvanera and David Cooper. Patty is one of the co-chairs of the IPBES Values Assessment and works at the Institute for Ecosystem and Sustainability Research, at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. David is the Deputy Executive Secretary at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, a global treaty that protects the diversity of life on earth.

If you want to hear more about this topic, you can also listen to episode 6 from our first season, with Brigitte Baptiste, another co-chair of the IPBES Values Assessment.

To find out more about IPBES, head to www.ipbes.net or follow us on social media @IPBES.

The IPBES Global Assessment showed that governance is one of the major indirect drivers of global biodiversity loss. In this episode, we look at the power (and limits) of laws and regulations - important elements of governance. Is law an effective tool to tackle the nature crisis? What role can law play both nationally and internationally? Can we use law to bring about the transformative change needed to protect nature?

Rob talks to Dr. Michelle Lim, Senior Lecturer at the Macquarie Law School in Sydney, Australia and an expert on the intersection between nature and law.

Music: River Feeling by Kalaji (Mark Coles Smith)

To find out more about IPBES, head to www.ipbes.net or follow us on social media @IPBES.

We may not realize it, but all of us use and benefit from wild species. Algae, fungi, plants and animals - from medicine to food, they’re important parts of our quality of life. But the IPBES Global Assessment identified over-exploitation of species as one of the main drivers of change in biodiversity. So how are we using wild species? Is there such a thing as sustainable use? How does illegal trade play into all this?

This week, Brit talks to two guests. Dr. John Donaldson is a biodiversity scientist and one of the Co-chairs of the IPBES Assessment of the Sustainable Use of Wild Species, due for release later this year. Ivonne Higuero is the Secretary-General of CITES, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

To find out more about IPBES, head to www.ipbes.net or follow us on social media @IPBES.

IPBES assessments are massive undertakings. The IPBES Global Assessment alone involved 150 experts from 50 countries, donating thousands of hours of time over three years. So how is one of these assessments put together? What’s it like in the late-night negotiations behind closed doors? What makes such a colossal process worth the effort? Rob is joined by his long-time colleague and friend, Hien Ngo, to answer all these questions. Hien was the Head of the technical support unit for the IPBES Global Assessment.

You can access and read all IPBES Assessments on the website, here. 

To find out more about IPBES, head to www.ipbes.net or follow us on social media @IPBES.

To be an IPBES author, you need to be one of the very best in your field. Typically this means having decades of published research to your name. But making space for a variety of voices is at the heart of IPBES. Through its Fellowship Programme, IPBES offers exceptional early-career researchers a ‘seat at the table’. Dr. Lelani Mannetti is a Fellow on the IPBES Values Assessment, and speaks to Brit about the Fellowship as a ‘fast-forward’ mechanism.

Brit also talks to Juliette Prieur, from AXA’s Research Fund, which is making a significant financial contribution to IPBES - specifically to support the Fellowship Programme. She tells us about the importance of supporting young researchers and why an insurance company would finance biodiversity research.

To find out more about IPBES, head to www.ipbes.net or follow us on social media @IPBES.

Brit and Rob are back for a second season of Nature Insight! Join them as they ‘speed date’ with experts with unique insights into the values of nature and the world we all share. Subscribe now to learn how to make better choices about protecting all life on earth.

To find out more about IPBES, head to www.ipbes.net or follow us on social media @IPBES.