On 28 October, Warwick District UNA will host a talk by Matilda Dunn, Research Graduate: Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College, London on the subject of

Biodiversity – why are we losing it and how can we save it?

It will be held in Leamington Spa Baptist Church (Warwick Hall), Chandos Street, CV32 4RN from 12:15 to 14:00. Please feel free to bring your own lunches. Tea/coffee/biscuits will be provided.

It will also be available online. Join the Zoom Meeting here

Matilda Dunn is a PhD student in the Centre for Environmental Policy investigating the environmental dimensions of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. She is interested in how environmental issues underpin the delivery of the SDGs as a whole, as well as how biodiversity outcomes are currently integrated within the UN Systems. This work aims to provide a set of recommendations to achieve greater synergy, collaboration and coherence in the UN system’s work on the environment to support the delivery of the environmental dimension of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Previously, Matilda was based in the Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science group at the University of Oxford where she focussed on research surrounding behaviour change interventions, impact evaluations and illegal wildlife trade. She holds an MSc with distinction in Conservation Science from Imperial College London and a BSc first-class honours in Zoology from the University of Exeter.

Matilda will focus on how human activities that threatens biodiversity – such as burning fossil fuels and industrialized farming, have combined to dramatically impact the planet’s biomes and ecosystems. Climate change, deforestation, and pollution have destroyed or damaged habitats, changed where species live and eliminated species at a speed and scale comparable to major extinction events of the past. Humanity relies on the earth’s natural systems to regulate the environment and maintain a habitable planet.

In December 2022 the Conference of the Parties on Biodiversity (COP15) agreed to a new Global Biodiversity Framework with a vision to live in harmony with nature by 2050. That provides a strategic plan for a collective effort among nations to affect transformative change.

The world is making some progress towards preserving biodiversity. In 2023 a new High Seas Treaty agreed to place 30 per cent of the seas into protected areas by 2030 to safeguard and regenerate marine nature.–