Nature recovery is advancing globally and Natural State is ensuring that Africa is not left in the dust. Over the past two months, the Ecosystems Programme has hosted Natural State's Dr Lucy Smyth, to work with Dr Nikki Stevens, Oxford's Trapnell Fellow in African Environments, to develop a novel way of recording and monitoring carbon and biodiversity data collected at Natural State's nature recovery sites in Africa.
Lucy is a conservation scientist for Natural State, an organisation that is actively building the foundation for nature-based solutions in the Global South. The Natural State Research Centre lies at the base of Mt. Kenya in the Laikipia County and is surrounded by open grassland, shrubland, dense forest, and wetlands where diverse, natural populations of plants and animals thrive in this unique landscape. There are a range of land management methods being utilised in this landscape, including pastoral community conservancies, smallholder agriculture, community forest reserves, and private protected areas. Multiple organisations are currently testing innovative conservation and restoration initiatives in the region, providing an opportunity to monitor nature-based solutions in Africa. The Natural State Research Centre has the most advanced carbon lab in Northern Kenya which allows their team to advance conservation and restoration apporaches in the region.
This is where Lucy and Nikki first met. Lucy had recently joined Natural State as a conservation scientist, to help develop robust and scalable ways of monitoring change in biodiversity so that restoration projects with positive outcomes can be recognised. Nikki was visiting the research centre to advise on the setup of Natural State's long term carbon and biodiversity monitoring plots. Given Nikki’s vast experience as a savanna ecologist and her role as a Trapnell Fellow in African Environments at Oxford, she provided a unique link between Natural State’s work on monitoring change in savanna systems and the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery's (LCNR) work globally. Through this connection Natural State has become a case study for the LCNR, and to help increase collaboration between the two groups Lucy is has been working from Oxford for the past two months.
While visiting the University of Oxford, Lucy and Nikki have been developing data streams to allow field data on carbon and biodiversity to flow seamlessly through a series of checks and balances and be displayed on Natural State’s Impact Monitoring dashboard. These data pipelines are unique because they ensure data provenance, allowing changes in carbon or biodiversity to be used to inform financial mechanisms for nature. In addition to developing these data pipelines, Lucy and Nikki have been brainstorming exciting ideas about how biodiversity can be monitored and valued, particularly in the context of savanna systems where too often carbon is optimised to the detriment of biodiversity. While virtual meetings offer great opportunities for international collaboration, the face-to-face time that Lucy and Nikki have had over the past two months has greatly developed their research and will be instrumental to Natural State's ongoing biodiversity and carbon monitoring.
Visiting Oxford is, however, not only an academic experience and is often an exciting visit for anyone from around the world, with its old buildings, rich history of learning and discovery, as well as its beautiful open spaces and we always encourage visitors to make the most of their time in this historical city. During her time in Oxford, Lucy has valued meeting interesting people, attending diverse seminars and simply being able to chat informally over lunch with new colleagues and friends. But Lucy has especially enjoyed cycling around the city, saying that "[she] come[s] from a place where bicycles are not a very safe or practical means of transportation, and [she has] really loved being able to get anywhere and everywhere on two wheels that require no petrol." Thankfully, Lucy's landlady had a spare bicycle to lend her and she was able to take part in a uniquely Oxfordian way of travel.
Hosting visiting researchers is hugely beneficial to the Ecosystems Programme, as new ideas and ways of thought move through our research programme, and we have valued Lucy's time in Oxford with us. But, this visit has not only been beneficial to us, as Lucy says, "Spending time at the University of Oxford has reminded me of what I appreciate about academia, and why I love the world of research. Who knows where that’ll take me in the future, but Oxford has certainly been a stepping stone."