The challenge

Biodiversity loss is happening faster than ever and presents major challenges for the environment, people, and economies worldwide. The rich variety of life on Earth provides essential benefits that are threatened by this decline. Preserving and restoring biodiversity is crucial to ensuring a sustainable future. 

Our role

Our research examines the state of biodiversity in the UK and around the world. We explore the role of biodiversity in ecosystem functioning and providing services that are vital to maintaining a healthy environment including pollination, climate regulation, flood protection, soil fertility, food production, and the benefits people get from being in nature.

Using a whole-systems approach, we shape sustainable solutions for restoring nature, tackling habitat loss, pollution, climate change, and invasive species. From our decades of research, we have unparalleled insights into how to restore biodiversity across land, lakes, rivers, and coastal areas. 
 

Our goals 

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A tractor harvesting in a field beside a wildflower margin
  • Enhance understanding of the pivotal role biodiversity plays in providing benefits for people, guiding better decision-making.  

  • Integrate citizen science, professional surveys, and new technologies to monitor biodiversity, spot trends, and identify tipping points. 

  • Work with partners to develop innovative methods for continuously monitoring biodiversity at sensitive sites across the globe. 

  • Create new insights into the causes of biodiversity loss, helping to shape interventions and inform scenario planning. 

  • Scale up our research and monitoring capabilities to landscape scale, accelerating the pace of new discoveries and delivering solutions to conserve and restore biodiversity.  

The impact we will have

We explore the role biodiversity plays in providing vital services such as pollination, climate regulation, flood protection, soil fertility, and food production. Using a whole-system approach, we shape solutions that balance sustainable development with nature restoration. 
 

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