̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - David Attenborough

Dasgupta Review: Nature’s value must be included in economics to preserve biodiversity

fpjl2 — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 12:32:22 +0000

Nature is a “blind spot” in economics that can no longer be ignored by the accounting systems that dictate national finances, according to a major global review by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta.

̽��ֱ��climate crisis: towards zero carbon

lw355 — Wed, 26 Feb 2020 07:35:22 +0000

If we are to avoid climate disaster we must sharply reduce our carbon dioxide emissions starting today – but how?

In a new film, Cambridge researchers describe their work on generating and storing renewable energy, reducing energy consumption, understanding the impact of climate policies, and probing how we can each reduce our environmental impact. Alumni Sir David Attenborough and Dr Jane Goodall DBE speak about the climate crisis and reasons for hope.

We hear about the ambitious new programme Cambridge Zero bringing together ideas and innovations to tackle the global challenge of climate catastrophe – and inspiring a generation of future leaders – and how the ̽��ֱ�� is looking at its own operations to develop a zero carbon pathway for the future.

Explore more:

Visit our spotlight on Sustainable Earth

Read our Horizons magazine: download a pdf; view on Issuu

Sir David Attenborough, Dr Jane Goodall DBE and leading Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� researchers talk about the urgency of climate crisis – and some of the solutions that will take us towards zero carbon.

There are huge opportunities to getting things right – the only way to operate is to believe we can do something about it – and I truly think we can.

Sir David Attenborough

̽��ֱ��Climate Crisis: Towards Zero Carbon

NASA

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Cambridge hosts World Economic Forum meeting looking at role of nature in delivering development goals

cjb250 — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 04:15:43 +0000

During a panel discussion and round-table, business leaders, academics and conservation practitioners will share their insights on developing nature-based solutions that reverse the loss of biodiversity at scale.

Sir David has previously said that he does not recall hearing the word ‘conservation’ during his undergraduate days. But in the 70 years since, much has changed. We have increased our understanding of and appreciation for how the natural world underpins life on Earth, the fragility of our planet’s natural systems, and the need to protect these systems.

In this context, the private sector’s dependence on a healthy natural world is an area of particular focus and growing prominence. ̽��ֱ��World Economic Forum (WEF) included a number of environmental risks, including biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, in the top ten risks identified in the its Global Risks Report 2018.

Within Sir David’s adult life, the UN’s approach to the problems facing our planet has also undergone a significant change. ̽��ֱ��ongoing commitment to global well-being is now closely linked with the need for development to advance within planetary boundaries. In 2015 the UN adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, which strive to address the challenges we face using an integrated and holistic approach. Investing in nature has the potential to make a significant contribution to all 17 Goals, and the private sector is key to this investment.

̽��ֱ��panel discussion will be chaired by Professor Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, and a prominent thinker on human rights and environmental law.

“Restoring and sustaining the natural world is a powerful feat of creativity and imagination, and a powerful commitment to building a more abundant and equitable society,” says Professor Toope. “It is also a challenge we must meet, because without it there is no meaningful future for society as we know it.

“I strongly believe that organisations such as the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have a duty to engage with these challenges, no matter how great. Through collaborations across disciplines and between sectors, including NGOs and business, we can better understand and identify solutions and demonstrate the leadership necessary to address these major issues.”

̽��ֱ��panel will draw on expert insight from the Cambridge Conservation Initiative partners, including IUCN, UNEP-WCMC and Fauna & Flora International. ̽��ֱ��role of the private sector in delivering the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals will feature prominently, with a particular focus on nature’s contribution to sustainability, as well as to health, equality, justice and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Business is already investing significantly in managing and conserving nature, but there are still considerable opportunities to do more. As panellist Corli Pretorius, Deputy Director of the UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, explains: “Nature’s sustainability should be explicit in our procurement decisions and consumer choices. It should form an integral part of the decision-making of a financial system for sustainable development.”

André Hoffmann, panellist and Vice-Chairman of the Board of Roche Holding Ltd adds: “ ̽��ֱ��business community has the chance to take a leadership role in including the natural world in business thinking. For years the benefits delivered by nature have been undervalued by the private sector. We now require a wholesale shift to a new way of operating, towards innovative nature-based approaches that strive to improve the state of the natural world to ensure a sustainable future for society and our planet.”

This event recognises a pivotal moment in the fate of our natural world, both in terms of its parlous state and its increasing prominence in the limelight. Sir David Attenborough, who has witnessed both the birth of conservation, and an increasing focus on the environment across sectors, will conclude the panel discussion with his thoughts on nature’s role in the future of humanity.

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge
̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the ̽��ֱ��’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

Sir David Attenborough will join the Cambridge Conservation Initiative as it hosts an event at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos today exploring the role of nature in delivering the Sustainable Development Goals.

Restoring and sustaining the natural world is a powerful feat of creativity and imagination

Stephen Toope

Vincent van Zalinge

Kingfisher

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#EarthOptimism: Recovering species must be celebrated or we risk reversing progress

fpjl2 — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 07:46:50 +0000

A failure to celebrate conservation successes means we miss vital opportunities to convince the public of “real and practical solutions” they can engage with, says a leading conservationist.

Writing in the journal Oryx, Andrew Balmford, Professor of Conservation Science at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, argues that any progress risks being reversed if we “let drift the many gains that the conservation movement is making”.

Progress redefines what we consider normal, he says, as in the case of the smoking ban or rights for women. Such “positive shifting baselines” even extend to the green shoots of nature’s recovery through conservation – from birdlife in the UK’s Avalon marshes to monkeys in Brazilian forests.

However, Balmford says conservation improvements can quickly get taken for granted. When combined with the seemingly endless torrent of bad news about nature, he believes the overall effect can render people hopeless.

“If we forget where we’ve come from, we risk allowing things to slip backwards,” he writes, pointing to examples in the UK and US where early species recoveries have already led to official sanctioning of hunting and culling of partially restored populations.

In an effort to shift the balance towards celebrating and reinforcing success, Balmford and colleagues from the Cambridge Conservation Initiative are organising Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s contribution to a day of global action. #EarthOptimism will promote a much more positive outlook on the future of the natural world.

Taking place on 22 April, Earth Day, #EarthOptimism summits are being coordinated across more than 20 cities including Washington, London, Dallas and Helsinki. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge event features an open invitation to hear ‘Stories of Hope’ from noted naturalists such as legendary primatologist and ̽��ֱ�� alumnus Jane Goodall, and Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker.

There will also be a ‘Solutions Fair’, with interactive examples of the choices everyone can make in their lives to take positive actions for the planet: from more sustainable eating to smart purchasing.

“Many of us want to make a difference, but lack credible information about how we can have real impact,” says Balmford. “Empowering people with practical suggestions is key to understanding we are all part of the solution.”

Sir David Attenborough, for whom the new conservation campus building at Cambridge is named, will also be in attendance at Cambridge #EarthOptimism.

“While we cannot ignore the threats to nature, there are a growing number of examples of improvements in the health of species and habitats, along with benefits to human well-being, thanks to conservation action,” said Attenborough.

“But conservation cannot succeed through experts alone. ̽��ֱ��decisions that we all make in our day-to-day lives are critical for its success.”

Balmford has long argued for the importance of celebrating conservation victories. In 2012, he published a book, Wild Hope, which collected examples of good news from the natural world.

“You have to show people that their actions can change the world,” he says. “You will never motivate people by just giving them bad news.”

In the latest article, Balmford highlights recent reasons to be slightly more cheerful: restored corridors of Brazilian forests leading to a rebound by tiny monkeys called golden lion tamarins; giant pandas no longer categorised as Endangered; and protected areas helping to rebuild fish stocks in the Amazon.

Cambridge #EarthOptimism will feature more good news from nature, including resurgent seabirds and harmonious human-jaguar coexistence.

However, Balmford warns that such progress can fall victim to complacency if people are not aware of and championing these positive changes.

In the UK, he flags the resurgence of some raptor species such as the red kite – down to under forty birds in the 1960s – and the common buzzard. This partial recovery has already led to legalised culling of buzzards, to protect the economic interests of a shooting industry that annually releases millions of non-native game birds into the countryside.

Similarly, in the US limited recovery of wolf populations – still at less than 2% of historic levels – has led to some states delisting wolves as endangered, opening the animal up to hunting.

“If as a result of positive shifting baselines we fail to remind ourselves and others of where we would be without conservation, the progress we have made risks being reversed,” says Balmford.

“Overturning the huge declines that nature is now experiencing will take a long time, and require fundamental shifts in our behaviour. But if we learn from the successes that conservation has already achieved, we can buy ourselves and the world around us much more time for those changes to take place.”

Cambridge conservationists will unite with colleagues across the globe on Earth Day this Saturday to lionise environmental victories and show there is cause for hope – the decisive component in the fight to save disappearing biodiversity.

You have to show people that their actions can change the world. You will never motivate people by just giving them bad news.

Andrew Balmford

Jeroen Kransen

Golden Lion Tamarin, an endangered species that has grown from 200 to more than 3,200 individuals in three decades.

#EarthOptimism: a few reasons to be cheerful

Asian rhino have long been hunted for their horns. However, numbers in Kaziranga National Park in India have increased from less than 500 in the sixties to over 2,500 today thanks to strong conservation protection.
India completed the world’s largest solar park in September last year. In January this year, China unveiled one 30% bigger.
Europe's large carnivores are making a comeback: Sustainable populations of brown bear, Eurasian lynx, grey wolf, and wolverine persist in one-third of mainland Europe, with many populations increasing.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has reduced by two-thirds since its peak in 2004. Forest conservation has thus prevented 3.2 Gt of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere.
A release earlier this year brought to 35 the number of scimitar-horned Oryx – declared Extinct in the Wild in 2000 – that are now free-ranging in Chad, with the first wild birth this century just reported.
Marine Protected Areas now cover over 5% of the world’s oceans – up from around 1% just a decade ago.
Restoration of key forest corridors in Brazil has helped the wild population of the endangered golden lion tamarin grow from 200 to more than 3,200 individuals in three decades.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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See inside the David Attenborough Building for the first time after its £59million facelift

ts657 — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 10:35:40 +0000

̽��ֱ��new-look David Attenborough Building opens its doors to the public for the first time next week for an art exhibition that celebrates the pioneering partnership between conservationists and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

̽��ֱ��show features photographs of Museum Of Zoology specimens preserved in alcohol (termed “spirits”) partnered with tree saplings grown from seeds collected from the specimen’s natural habitat.

A second artwork, Seeing Red..Overdrawn, will be an interactive 23ft long, 10ft high printed list of more than 4,700 endangered species, and will be on display beside Stranded, a 19ft long crystal encrusted whale skeleton.

̽��ֱ��artists behind them, Ackroyd & Harvey (Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey), are famous for their living artworks including 2007’s ‘FlyTower’ for which they grew seedling grass over part of London’s iconic National Theatre, and History Trees, ten living sculptures marking entrances to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Ackroyd says: “ ̽��ֱ��tree elements came through our realisation that the building is on the site of the old botanic garden. There is a sense of overlaying history there - zoology and botany - and animals and plants have been very important within our work for the past 25 years.”

̽��ֱ��exhibition is part of a drive to open up the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s New Museums Site, where the David Attenborough Building is based, to the public, which will see three new public courtyards created over the next ten years.

A new public artwork by Ackroyd & Harvey around the new Corn Exchange Street entrance to the building will also be unveiled when the exhibition opens.

̽��ֱ��30ft long by 20ft high spiral slate sculpture will be installed on the facing wall of the stairway leading to the exhibition space and and a new conservation campus created by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI).

CCI is a collaboration between leading biodiversity conservation organisations and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��sculpture is inspired by mathematician Fibonacci's “golden ratio” spiral.

Refurbishment work on the David Attenborough Building is due to be completed in April with the Museum of Zoology scheduled to reopen on its lower floors later this year.

̽��ֱ��free art show (9 March-17 April) is part of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Science Festival (7-20 March).

As part of the festival, the Museum of Zoology is offering the public a preview of its new galleries, the chance to handle specimens and craft making on Saturday 12 March.

Normally closed to the public, the CCI campus will also be open to visitors on 12 March for a day of hands-on activities and talks. Access to all events at the David Attenborough Building will be via the Corn Exchange Street entrance.

For more information, visit www.sciencefestival.cam.ac.uk

Visitors can view the refurbished building (formerly the Arup Building) for the first time when exhibition Conflicted Seeds + Spirit opens to the public on 9 March.

̽��ֱ��tree elements came through our realisation that the building is on the site of the old botanic garden. There is a sense of overlaying history there - zoology and botany - and animals and plants have been very important within our work for the past 25 years.

Artist Heather Ackroyd

An image of a scaly anteater (pangolin) specimen from the Museum of Zoology collection

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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New centre for biodiversity conservation named after Sir David Attenborough

th288 — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:58:15 +0000

̽��ֱ��David Attenborough Building will become a focal point for research and practice to transform our understanding and the conservation of biodiversity.

Currently undergoing refurbishment, the David Attenborough Building is located in the heart of the city, on the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s New Museums Site.

Once completed, it will provide a vibrant hub for the partners in the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI), a unique collaboration between the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the Cambridge-based cluster of leading conservation organisations, and the Museum of Zoology.

̽��ֱ��CCI space has been designed to provide collaborative facilities to foster innovation, generate solutions to conservation challenges and create an ideas-rich environment to inspire future generations. It will house over 500 academics, practitioners and students from the ̽��ֱ�� and its CCI partner organisations.

“Sir David Attenborough’s work, introducing and enthusing millions of people to the beauty, fragility and our scientific understanding of the natural world, makes the naming of this building in his honour particularly significant,” said Dr Mike Rands, Executive Director of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative.

“ ̽��ֱ��David Attenborough Building will act as a collaborative hub for the conservation community within Cambridge and beyond. Creating a collaborative and dynamic space in which experts from academia, practice and policy can interact and work together on a daily basis will help shape the future of life on Earth and the relationship between people and the natural environment on which we depend for our own wellbeing and survival.”

̽��ֱ��collaborative space of the Conservation Campus is complemented by the presence of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology in the lower floors of the building.

As part of this project, the Museum of Zoology is undergoing major refurbishment to create new displays to inspire and engage audiences with the wonders of animal diversity, and new stores to preserve its outstanding collections for the future.

̽��ֱ��Museum’s collections include many significant specimens that have been instrumental in furthering scientific knowledge, such as Darwin’s finches, as well as a number of examples of extinct organisms such as the iconic dodo.

As Professor Paul Brakefield, Director of the Museum of Zoology, comments " ̽��ֱ��refurbishment of the Museum of Zoology will allow many new audiences to discover these wonders for themselves, as well as maintaining the Museum’s key role in ̽��ֱ�� teaching.”

Refurbishment work on the David Attenborough Building is due to be completed by the end of 2015

̽��ֱ��Museum of Zoology is scheduled to reopen in the summer of 2016.

A series of events are being planned to mark the opening of the building, which will give members of the public the chance to view the building and to learn more about the innovative work that will be taking place under its roof.

If you’d like to learn more about the Cambridge Conservation Initiative and explore how you can get involved, please contact Donnell Ocker Roy at donnell.roy@admin.cam.ac.uk

Picture Credit: Nicholas Hare Architects

An iconic building in the centre of Cambridge is, today, being named the David Attenborough Building, in honour of Sir David’s pioneering work in bringing the wonders of our natural world to our screens.

̽��ֱ��David Attenborough Building will act as a collaborative hub for the conservation community within Cambridge and beyond.

Dr Mike Rands

Nicholas Hare Architects

More Information

Cambridge Conservation Initiative

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) exists to deliver transformational approaches to understanding and conserving biodiversity and the wealth of natural capital it represents. It aims to do so through strategic collaborations between its partners and others. By joining together in strategic collaborations CCI’s partners are able to tackle new and existing issues with innovative approaches, and across disciplines, in ways that cannot be achieved by any one partner alone. ̽��ֱ��CCI partners are: BirdLife International, British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), the Cambridge Conservation Forum, Fauna & Flora International (FFI), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), TRAFFIC, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Tropical Biology Association, UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

̽��ֱ��Museum of Zoology

̽��ֱ��Museum of Zoology has long been recognised internationally for its extraordinarily rich and important holdings, coupled with its excellence in research and teaching. ̽��ֱ��Museum is currently undergoing major renovation in order to fully realise the potential of the priceless collections, enable it to host higher visitor numbers, and provide an exciting modern environment for lifelong learning, teaching, research and preservation of the collections. It will reopen in late 2016 to coincide with its 150th anniversary.

With extensive material covering the diversity of animal life collected from 1814 onwards, in 1998 the Museum’s collections were designated of outstanding historical and international significance by the UK Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Currently comprising four million specimens including 30,000 bird skins, 10,000 sets of eggs and over 3,500 fossil vertebrates, the Museum holds numerous ‘type’ specimens – which act as the universal references for classifying and naming species – of the highest scientific importance.

David Attenborough

Sir David has many connections to Cambridge. He read Natural Sciences as an undergraduate student (Clare 1945), is a very good friend of the Museum and Department of Zoology, serves as a Vice-President or Patron for several CCI partners (including RSPB, Fauna & Flora International and BirdLife International). In April 2013 he launched the plans for the CCI Conservation Campus in the Senate House with the former Chancellor HRH ̽��ֱ��Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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