News & Stories – Page 4 – Oxford Nature Network

Selected News and Stories

Trinity Term Nature Series Friday Talks

How to save the Amazon

In honour of journalist Dom Philips and indigenista Bruno Pereira, a gathering of Indigenous leaders, human rights and environmental defenders, researchers, and practitioners came together on Earth Day to celebrate their lives and build hope for ‘How to Save the Amazon.’ The newly launched paperback version of the book ‘How to Save the Amazon’ uncovers […]

Exploring the deep sea

Did you know that only 0.001% of the deep ocean has been visually observed, even though it constitutes two-thirds of the planet? DPhil student Sheena Talma features on the Planet Visionaries podcast to talk about the ocean, and her fascinating research.

Trinity Term Nature Network Coffee Morning Talks

April 30th Dr Ada Grabowska-Zhang and Dr Joanna Bagniewska – Connecting nature and connecting with nature – tools, motivations and capacity Society is experiencing an increased disconnection from nature, which not only impacts the environment, its restoration and conservation, but also human well-being. Here we present several projects through which we give people the […]

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The Oxford Nature Network is a network of researchers and practitioners in and around the University working on biodiversity.

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Featuring on the Biodiversity Network website

If you are a member of staff, visiting researcher or a student at the University of Oxford, and you would like to feature your profile, or that of your research group on this website, please give us a few details and we’ll do the rest. To add your profile to the website click here To […]

Biodiversity Network Coffee (and talk) mornings

13th March: Klara Kaleb – Natural Language Processing for Nature-based Solutions Accessing high-quality evidence for nature-based solutions (NbS) is challenging due to the vast, fragmented scientific literature. Manual systematic reviews are slow and resource-intensive, often leading to suboptimal environmental decisions. Advances in transformer-based Natural Language Processing (NLP) offer new opportunities to automate evidence synthesis and […]

Beyond the Sensor: Building Blocks for Equitable Nature Recovery

Dr Eric Mensah Kumeh Remote sensing has been around for almost 150 years, with the earliest forms of remote sensing dating back to the 1800s. The first aerial photographs were taken in 1858 by Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, also known as Nadar, using a hot air balloon. Remote sensing is important because it provides a way to […]

Unpacking the politics of Nature-based Solutions governance: Making space for...

A new open access paper – ‘Unpacking the politics of Nature-based Solutions governance: Making space for transformative change‘ explains that while Nature Based Solutions (NbS) have huge potential to tackle biodiversity loss, climate change, and human well-being, dominant governance approaches can undermine the transformative change we need. NbS have received significant attention worldwide for their […]

Cop29: Indigenous communities still being sold short as the world...

dee karen/Shutterstock Stephen Lezak, University of Oxford and Bea Addis, Washington University in St. Louis As the annual UN climate conference, Cop29, draws to a close, negotiators, civil society observers and activists are staying up late, poring over draft texts that will determine how the international community addresses climate change for years to come. Central […]

Conservation Careers

When: Tuesday 26th, 5:30-7 Where: Christ Church lecture room 2 Who for: undergrads with interest in a conservation career Sign up here: https://forms.gle/R8nkb2rGiNFqV44w9 Are you an undergrad hoping to go into a conservation-related career? Hear from the OUNCS committee about some of our varied experiences as we also attempt to get into the world of nature conservation! We all still have many […]

The climate and biodiversity crises are entwined, but we risk...

Nathalie Seddon, University of Oxford and Audrey Wagner, University of Oxford Climate change and biodiversity policies have largely evolved in isolation, even though the two crises are deeply intertwined. They have their own UN summits, with the same name and numbering system: the UN biodiversity summit Cop16 just concluded in Colombia, while the climate summit […]

An Indian village went from hunting Amur falcons to being...

Diogo Veríssimo, University of Oxford and Sahila Kudalkar, Columbia University Wildlife conservation is an exercise in human persuasion. It may seem counterintuitive that we hold the keys to the survival of wildlife, but 98% of all threatened species are threatened exclusively by human activities such as pollution, invasive species or habitat loss. Influencing human behaviour […]

Wild or manicured? Why we disagree about messy natures

Current aspirations for nature recovery to address biodiversity loss and climate change involve changing what landscapes look like What is considered neat or messy impacts on action and policy changes Nature recovery activities are highly politicised and resisted Publicised movements for messier gardens and environments can help shift public opinion to accepting less orderly environments […]

COP16 Colombia, a newcomer’s reflection

By Yadvinder Malhi In late October 2024, the UN Convention on Biodiversity held its biennial large meeting (the Conference of Parties, or COP). This convention is a sister of the better known one on climate change, both birthed in Rio in 1992, but until the last few years has languished in relative obscurity. This all […]

US election: Trump is threatening to turn back the tide...

Stephen Lezak, University of Oxford and Barbara Haya, University of California, Berkeley The Cuyahoga River, which runs through downtown Cleveland, Ohio, used to catch fire every decade or so. It started in the 1860s, when the river became choked with industrial waste, and the conflagrations continued all the way until the 1960s – the same […]

Why is the Biodiversity Cop seen as the poor relative...

Professor Yadvinder Malhi, is at Cop 16 and commented on why Biodiversity has been slow to get on the agenda. “I think one of the reasons that the climate change convention really took of after Rio in 1992, whereas the biodiversity convention languished, is that it was easier to tell a straightforward story of climate […]