Skylar Liu’s Post

While waiting for the "Nexus Report" of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) to be released on 17 December, you can listen to the great Nature Insight podcast. The report is long awaited and focus on the need to adopt a systemic approach when tackling our planet crisis. Interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food, health and climate change are so important that we can no longer work in silos. Prof. Paula Harrison, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Co-chair of the IPBES Nexus Assessment summarises it very clearly: “Global crises in biodiversity, water, food, health and climate change often intensify each other when addressed separately and should therefore be tackled together. The Nexus Assessment is among the most ambitious work ever undertaken by the IPBES community, offering an unprecedented range of response options to move decisions and actions beyond single issue silos. Cascading crises can compound each other, but a nexus approach considers the interdependencies between these crises and offers holistic solutions that can improve outcomes across multiple sectors and systems.” #IPBES11 #biodiversity #climatechange #SDG

When you learn about hydrology, have you ever thought about managing sea level rise and floods without the stereotypical human intervention of walls, wave breaks, etc.? I hadn't until I attended the Esri Geodesign Summit today and listened to Dr. Kongjian Yu speak about creating a Sponge Planet, where he said that 40% of our sea level rise problems can be reduced by allowing nature to manage water instead of our multitude of impermeable surfaces. His talk and experiment results were fascinating. If you weren't able to attend his lecture, I encourage you to watch this short TedX talk he gave last year! #esri #geodesign

New innovations in Dutch greenhouse horticulture on display at Greentech. Many outsiders have little or no knowledge of what innovations are taking place in greenhouse horticulture. This video from Hilverda-Florist, one of the leading breeders in floriculture, shows that robots from ISO Horti Innovators from Gameren can take cuttings with unprecedented speed, precision and consistent quality. With Vision technology and AI, these robots become better and better as they learn. The labor savings are important, but not the main point. Logiqs from Maasdijk has also designed a mobile cultivation system for this company, whereby the cultivation process can be controlled fully automatically. There are actually no more people in the greenhouse. Operating a greenhouse like Hilverda-Florist is actually running a Formula 1 team. Many factors determine success. It starts with the growers, the greenhouse itself, irrigation system, screen and light installation, energy system, mobile cultivation systems, robotization and automation and of course marketing, etc. In this case it is a collaboration between the aforementioned ISO Horti Innovators, Logiqs, Robur and including BvZ. #greentech #horticulture #iso #logiqs #hilverdaflorist #agri #food

If you do one thing today, watch Erik Thulin's Bescy Environment Group talk on 'Beyond Nudge'. 🙌 He demonstrates how it's possible to use behavioural science to achieve huge social change in two very tough behavioural challenges to restore the environment and protect people's livelihoods. He says: "We need a complete behavioural science informed toolkit for addressing environmental challenges." "That toolkit does include nudges, but when you want transformative change where people are changing things that deeply matter to their livelihoods, it requires more intensive and complex styles of behaviour change interventions." 🌿 #behavioralscience #environment #behaviouralscience #behaviourchange Rare

To some, climate change has seemingly become a 'global' topic for two decades. The term has become so familiar that its value has diminished for many, who now see it as a cash cow for non-profits. With the just-ended #COP-29, we, as Global Shapers Harare Hub, are initiating design-centered conversations locally in Zimbabwe and Harare. Our goal is to ensure that the issue of climate change is understood at the grassroots level and to demonstrate its effects within communities. For the 2023/24 farming season, Zimbabwe's El Niño-induced drought affected over 80% of the country, according to ReliefWeb, leading to reduced crop production and increased food prices. UNICEF reports that 40% of crops were poor, and 60% were completely written off for Zimbabwe. In this climate context, our EmpowerAgri Project hub member, Kundai Faith Jigu, was a guest on a local radio show to explore the critical link between climate change and education. Kindly listen to her interview at the link below. https://lnkd.in/dvTHcczE Kundai Faith Jigu Krystal Mtasa Thabo Nicole Mwandama Raissa K. Ondela Mlandu

If you missed Erik Thulin 's talk on 'Beyond Nudge' looking at how we can use behavioural science to solve environmental challenges in communities, here are our key takeaways! 🔔 Have you ever tried to convince people in your community to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle? 🌎 Even if you won a few people over, you probably found it hard. 😩 So how should we go about shifting an entire community to adopt a new and complex set of behaviours that benefit the environment? 🏞 Erik Thulin’s answer is to think way beyond nudge and to implement layered behaviour change intervention strategies like the ‘social snowball’ to encourage farming communities to adopt climate smart agriculture or a co-ordinated norm shift to sustainable fishing among coastal communities. 👫 The Social Snowball - Ease early adoption among those willing to give new methods or technology a go - Social proof - leverage dynamic social norms and get the early majority on board - Social pressure - target laggards so that communities are able to capture the collective benefits of the new approaches   🚦 The Co-ordinated Norm Shift - Generate collective demand: make the entire community collectively aware of the benefits of change so change individuals want the change but crucially know that all others in their community do too. - Coordinate the shift: for success, every single individual needs to simultaneously start doing the new sustainable behaviours to avoid free rider problems. Rare achieved this with pledges by each member of the community - Strengthen the norm using monitoring and measures to make it easy to verify if a member of the community has cheated. 🛠 Erik believes we need a complete behavioural science informed toolkit for addressing environmental challenges. That toolkit does include nudges, but when you want transformative change where people are changing things that deeply matter to their livelihoods, it requires more intensive and complex styles of behaviour change interventions. If you want to learn more, you can watch his talk here and follow Erik and Rare’s work. https://lnkd.in/ehJrSYTC To watch more talks like this, keep an eye on our page and subscribe to our youtube channel! 😃 #environment #fishing #regenerativeagriculture #behavioralscience #climatechange #beyondnudge

In this 2022 Ted Talk, Dr. Lyla June Johnston, shares four Indigenous land management techniques to inform the modern industrial revolution. How can we as business leaders incorporate these techniques to deliver sustainability? 🌧️ Tap into and align with the forces of nature - Why try to control the earth when you can work with her? 🦬 Intentional habitat expansion - Why put plants and animals into farms and cages when you can make a home for them and they come to you? 🌱 Create non-human centric systems - Why hoard for your own species when you can live to serve all life around you? 🪺 Design for perpetuity - Why plan for the next fiscal quarter when we could plan for generations not yet born? Learn more about this and other important insights from her talk: https://lnkd.in/e-a8C3UH Thanks for sharing this James Haarbauer! #indigenousknowledge #biodiversity #sustainability

If Earth Day has you thinking, like a New Year’s Resolution, about committing on a deeper level with the land and water on this gorgeous planet, consider a one-time or monthly contribution to the work being conducted at Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Science. The scientists and researchers here are passionate about making plants more climate resilient, so we have the resources we need at all points in the future!

Great talk from Erik Thulin on how to leverage social proof and social pressure to support pro-environmental behaviours! 🌱 Rare's work in using social norms-based approaches for sustainability - specifically, on supporting Colombian farmers' adoption of new technology - was also featured in the Behavioural Scientist: https://lnkd.in/etPQwrYE Showing the benefits that innovators (or first-movers) get from adopting a new behaviour, like a new farming technique, de-risks it for others, and as more people adopt the behaviour, there's more social pressure for the remaining 'resisters' to follow suit.

🌿 Understanding Biopiracy: Who Owns Nature? 🌿 In the latest BBC World Service podcast, science and climate reporter Georgina Rannard delves into the controversial issue of biopiracy—when companies patent living organisms like plants, often used by indigenous communities for centuries. This practice raises ethical concerns as it can undermine the rights and autonomy of these communities while granting exclusive commercial control to corporations. Nataly Canales, an evolutionary biologist and member of the Amazonian Quechua community in Peru, shares her perspective on how biopiracy affects her people’s autonomy and cultural heritage. As traditional knowledge meets modern commerce, the stakes are high for both businesses and indigenous communities. I believe that community-based approach to document aboriginal knowledge and flourish with further research is important for such scenarios. This approach must ensure viable business opportunities for host community for a sustainable development. #BioPiracy #CommunityBasedApproach #BusinessCases #SustainableDevelopment