How have plants adapted over centuries or millennia to survive and recover from human interference? David Moreno-Mateos and his team are analysing tree species in Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest to find out, and to help inform and improve future restoration practice.
News

Why ‘de-extinct’ dire wolves are a Trojan horse to hide humanity’s destruction of nature
In a thought-provoking feature for The Conversation, Dr Rich Grenyer, Associate Professor in Biodiversity and Biogeography, examines the ethical and ecological concerns surrounding de-extinction, arguing that the allure of reviving species like dire wolves risks diverting attention from the ongoing human-driven destruction of the natural world.
£30 million official backing for Oxford-led greenhouse gas removal programme
Coordinated by an Oxford team including Cameron Hepburn and Stephen Smith, the CO2 Removal Hub launched today with £30million in funding to explore innovative ways of stabilising our climate.

Nature-based solutions highly effective in long term - Oxford research
Nature-based solutions (NbS) can contribute to the fight against climate change up to the end of our century, according to new Oxford research in the leading scientific journal Nature. The analysis suggests that, to limit global temperature rise, we must slash emissions and increase NbS investment to protect, manage and restore ecosystems and land for the future.

Dr Sneha Krishnan awarded a British Academy / Wolfson Fellowship
Dr Sneha Krishnan has been awarded a British Academy / Wolfson Fellowship, which she will hold from January 2022 to December 2024.

Meet Anita Bharucha, Chief Operating Officer, SSEE
Anita is Chief Operating Officer for the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. She helps to ensure that the Smith School runs smoothly and has good governance, and to make sure that the Smith School's fantastic academics and professional staff have what they need to do their jobs.

Dr Louise Slater awarded Gill Memorial Award in 2021 RGS-IBG honours
Dr Louise Slater has been awarded the Gill Memorial Award for outstanding early career research in physical geography in the 2021 Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) honours.

Nature must be a partner, not just a provider of services - Oxford report
Nature based Solutions (NbS) could support transformative change in environmental sustainability - to address major societal challenges, including the climate crisis - according to a new paper from Oxford researchers.

Study reveals extent of human impact on the world's plant-life
Research has shed new light on the impact of humans on Earth's biodiversity. The findings suggest that the rate of change in an ecosystem's plant-life increases significantly during the years following human settlement, with the most dramatic changes occurring in locations colonized in the last 1500 years.

Five ECI faculty in top climate scientists list
Professor Myles Allen, Professor Jim Hall, Professor Yadvinder Malhi, Dr Michael Obersteiner and Dr Friederike Otto are listed in the 2021 "Reuters Hot List" of top climate scientists, which includes seven University of Oxford scientists in total. There are also five ECI alumni on the list: Malte Meinhausen, James Ford James Watson, Lea Berrang-Ford and Paula Harrison. The list tells the stories of the scientists who are having the greatest influence on the climate change debate through data on funding, citations and publications. The rankings themselves are based on a combination of research output, citations, and press coverage. "Of course these indicators are not the only way nor the best to measure the impact of our science and suffer from many biases that are prevalent in scientific publishing but this ranking shows that at ECI we work at the forefront of climate change research and so I am delighted that is being heard," said Dr Otto.

Oxford students win 2021 Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge
A team of four students from Oxford University including Annabella Wainer, 2nd year PhD student at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment has been named the winner of the 2021 Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge.

Tracking the economic impacts of COVID-19 one ship at a time
COVID-19 saw global maritime trade collapse by as much as 10% in the first eight months of 2020 - leading to losses of up to $412 billion, reveals recently published ECI research, which used sophisticated algorithms and tracking data to follow 100,000 vessels.
