Ancient trees, hedgerows, and mycorrhizal fungi in the soil: Insights from the Nature Returns Conference at Kew Gardens
Earlier this month, Agricultural Systems TAG co-lead James Clarke, England National Team co-leads Dr Jack Hannam and Professor Mike Morecroft and LUNZ Hub co-leas Professor Heiko Balzter attended the Nature Returns conference at Kew on behalf of the LUNZ Hub. With Tony Juniper delivering the keynote, the conference brought together policymakers, practitioners and scientists from across the country to hear about the programme’s emerging discoveries.
Led by Sallie Bailey (Chief Scientist) and Professor Mike Morecroft, presenters included scientists from Natural England and RBG Kew who revealed emerging findings from their carbon, soils and greenhouse gas research on multiple habitats across the country and at RBG Kew at Wakehurst. There were also panel sessions with representatives from the local eNGO/ council partnerships and experts on green finance.
Professor Mike Morecroft, England team co-lead and Programme Lead for Nature Returns said:
“It was brilliant to see such keen interest in the programme’s research findings. From learning about the latest discoveries about carbon in grasslands and hedgerows to discussing the benefits of nature-based solutions with our e-NGO partners and how we can unlock green finance, the day had something for everyone. The buzz from the demo room where scientists from Natural England and Kew demonstrated their technology and innovation was palpable, and it really brought home the benefits of collaboration. Sharing our data and evidence with policy and practice is a key part of the process, and paves the way to speeding up and scaling up our approach to climate change and biodiversity loss”Professor Mike Morecroft
Click here to watch the top insights from Tony Juniper at the Nature Returns conference
For more information on Nature Returns:
*Nature Returns seeks to research and test nature-based solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss at landscape scale. The flagship £17.5m programme is a HM Treasury funded collaboration led by Natural England with the Environment Agency, RBG Kew, Forestry Commission and a range of local partners including councils and environmental NGOs. Nature Returns is learning by doing, bringing together science, land management, green finance and community engagement to gather evidence and to help policymakers and investors make better decisions going forward.
Professor Mike Morecroft
England
James Clarke
Agricultural Systems
Dr Jack Hannam
England
Professor Heiko Balzter
Principal Investigator
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