In just under two months, the United Nations Biodiversity Summit (COP15) will be held in Montreal, Canada. The aim is to agree on a new global agreement – a kind of Paris agreement for nature.

– I want an agreement that includes an objective to stop the loss of biological diversity. But it takes more than that aim. We need mechanisms to track the goal and we need to put in place a system for allocating the costs of intervening on nature and the revenues of not destroying nature, says Vigdis Vandvik.

She is professor of plant ecology at the University of Bergen and directs the Center for Sustainable Land Use (CeSAM). Vandvik is also a member of the government committee on natural hazards and one of the Norwegian experts contributing to the work of the United Nations Nature Expert Group.

– One million species are threatened with extinction. I don’t understand why we dare to test the limits of what nature can withstand, says Vandvik.

In this podcast episode, she explains why the nature crisis must be solved alongside the climate crisis. She explains why we need global targets and agreements to halt the loss of biodiversity and how the targets should be monitored. And then she fears that we need to see the positive better by changing social structures, which waste resources and destroy nature, become more circular and preserve nature.

– We like to think of the election as either giving up prosperity or continuing to ride the wave of prosperity. But the choice we have is between a future with more extreme weather and a future with greener cities, better living spaces and healthier food, says Vandvik.

Listen to the podcast episode with Vigdis Vandvik in your favorite podcast player.