Social narratives around nonhuman life on Earth shape how we interrogate, value and act upon it.

These storylines have changed substantially over time, not fully replacing each other. Empirical evidence has accumulated supporting both deep connections between humans and other organisms, and ancient and pervasive human influence on the biosphere (“nature as garden”). However, technical definitions, institutions, policy goals, and recommended actions have lagged behind, being more aligned with the “nature as Eden” and “nature as spoils of war” narratives, which are arguably two sides of the same coin –a stark physical and ontological separation between people and the rest of life on Earth.

In this talk, Prof Sandra Díaz will unpack the “nature as garden” narrative, some of its cornerstones and challenges, and what it means for policy and action.

Registration on this page is to watch the event online. To attend in-person at the Oxford Martin School, please register at https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/events/nature-narratives

Sandra Díaz ForMemRS is an ecologist interested in plant functional traits and syndromes, their effects on ecosystem properties, their contributions to human quality of life, and their interactions with global change drivers. She constructed the first global quantitative picture of essential functional diversity of vascular plants –the global spectrum of plant form and function. She has advanced theory and practical implementation of the concept of functional diversity and its effects on ecosystem properties and benefits to people. She combines her ecology studies with interdisciplinary work on how different societies value and reconfigure nature, having spearheaded transformative conceptual frameworks favouring pluralistic collaborations in environmental knowledge an action, including the notion of nature’s contributions to people.

She co-founded the Global Communal Plant Trait Initiative TRY, co-chaired the Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and is one of the seven independent members of the Scientific Advisory to the Secretary General of the United Nations. She is a Foreign Fellow of the British Royal Society, among other scientific academies. Her international scientific awards include the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2021) and Medals from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (2020) and Edinburgh (2023) and the Linnean Society (2023). Her permanent home is in Córdoba, Argentina, where she is a Professor at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and a Senior Principal Investigator of CONICET.

'Nature narratives: Eden, spoils or garden' with Prof Sandra Díaz