The Nature Symposium in Oxford at the end of March was an opportunity for people from relevant Governance organisations, academia, charities and private companies, working in the realms of nature and landscape, to come together and discuss the movement towards nature recovery in the UK. As well as talks and panels there were several long, structured workshops that created opportunities for sharing of ideas, experiences, views, advice and offers of help. Often, we broke up into sub-groups and shared with the larger group – information that was then synthesised and shared with the whole symposium. This created a diversity and breadth of feedback overall.

Topics focussed on questions around what further research is needed, how to share and communicate the existing research, and datasets and approaches used for fieldwork and modelling land-use change. Biodiversity Net Gain was widely discussed, along with soil health, survey methods (including audio, eDNA, photography, wildlife surveys including birds and invertebrates, soil surveys), communication methods, collaborations, “Proof By Underpants”, Natural capital, interactions of different mechanisms, Biodiversity Action Plans, local records centres, the availability of data, and regenerative agriculture. Farmers brought their views and needs to the table, and academics and policymakers listened and offered suggestions. Many different tools and plans were shared, and we realised many times that the information we needed was already available. Altogether, we were left feeling inspired and hopeful, in the knowledge that only small changes would be needed to make a large difference.

The main takeaways for me were the stories shared and the connections created - which are ultimately the sources of inspiration and action, respectively. If we can bring these into the work that follows on from the meeting, a great deal can come from it.

I’m starting a PhD!
I’ll be looking at biodiversity metrics / ecosystem services, in relation to renewable energy, largely bioenergy.

What does this mean?
I have an opportunity to delve more into the impacts renewable energy might have on the biodiversity of the UK and further afield – both positive and negative impacts, that is – and perhaps be able to continue to influence in some way how renewable energy is produced. I’ve worked on biodiversity on solar farms for the past eight years and look forward to expanding into other types of renewable energy. There’s really an opportunity to build nature value in, in big and small ways.

I have an opportunity, too, to look at and influence the development of biodiversity metrics and ultimately, things like Natural Capital, ecosystem services assessments, and other ways that nature and the destruction of it are being monetised. The reason for this monetisation is to curb the impacts of capitalism on the natural world – the idea, that by having to pay for impacts of removing natural habitats, causing things like pollution, or using chemicals that kill, we are both protecting what is left of the natural world and creating a turning point where we bring back nature to degraded places, too.

Eventually, we will no longer need to monetise nature because we will find ways to live in harmony with the natural world once more. As things stand, it is a way to bring the importance of nature to the forefront of capitalism, making it for the first time in history more cost effective, in the immediate future, to care for the natural world than to destroy it. In the long-term, it is of course most cost effective to care for the natural world, as businesses the world over are realising, and are designing into their strategies.