Living Nature

As part of our Living Nature 2021 event series, we gathered an inspiring panel of artists, scientists, and activists to explore what positive human-nature relationships look like on a global scale.

Indigenous environmental and human rights activist, Helena Gualinga;  Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Alexandre Antonelli; founder of The British Ecological Society’s, Racial and Ethnic Equality and Diversity (REED) Network, Reuben Fayoka-Brooks; contemporary artist and ornithologist, Marcus Coates; and Global South Focal Point of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN), Swetha Stotra Bhashyam explore:

• How we bridge imbalances of power and respond to broken trust and collective emotions.
• What embedding nature’s intelligence into our systems could look like.

This event was hosted by Phoebe Tickell.

Thank you to our inspiring panel:

• Helena Gualinga, Indigenous environmental and human rights activist from the Kichwa Sarayaku community in Pastaza, Ecuador.
• Alexandre Antonelli, the Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, WAK Kew. He is also Professor in Biodiversity and Systematics at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and Visiting Professor at the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford. He was the founder and first Director of the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, established during his time as Scientific Curator of the Gothenburg Botanical Garden.
• Reuben Fayoka-Brooks, the chair and founder of The British Ecological Society’s, Racial and Ethnic Equality and Diversity (REED) Network. A masters graduate of Zoology, he’s currently facilitating psychological research for the Perinatal Mental Health project. He applies his skills as a scientist to consider and solve complex and novel problems. He is also an accomplished professional photographer
• Swetha Stotra Bhashyam, the Global South Focal Point of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN), a youth network of more than 1 million members, 550 member organizations, and 40 regional and national chapters and the official youth constituency to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). She is dedicated towards working in both the grass-root and the international policy levels to help conserve biodiversity and wildlife. Her wildlife conservation projects in India have included fighting against illegal encroachments into protected areas, advocating for conserving new habitats for otters, tigers and the critically endangered long-billed vultures. She also conducted one of the first studies on the stump-tailed macaques.
• Marcus Coates, a contemporary artist and ornithologist living in London. His works, including performances and installations that have been recorded as video art, employ shamanistic rituals in communication with “the lower world”, and contrast natural and man-made processes.
• Facilitated by Phoebe Tickell, Biologist and systems thinker developing methodologies and approaches suited for a better world. She works across multiple societal contexts applying a complexity and systems thinking lens and has worked in organisational design, advised government, the education sector and the food and farming sector.

“To create transformative change, we need to transform our education system”

–Swetha Stotra Bhashyam