https://watch.eeg.cl.cam.ac.uk/videos/watch/ca2231cd-fb92-4b57-b654-bbea92e293e1 (mirror of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9OHkILgBVE) The Environment Medal and Lecture 2025 is awarded to Professor Andrew Balmford FRS for groundbreaking contributions to conservation science, having built transformative partnerships and redefining the landscape of conservation education. Food production does more damage to wild species than any other sector of human activity, yet how best to limit its growing impact is greatly contested. Looking first at recent progress in encouraging less damaging diets and trying to cut food loss and waste, Professor Balmford will conclude that both are essential but far from sufficient. On the production side, field studies from five continents quantifying the impacts of different farming systems on almost 2000 individually-assessed species reveals, perhaps surprisingly, that land-sparing – adopting high-yield farming to in order make space nearby for natural habitats – consistently outperforms approaches focused on retaining wildlife within farms. Sparing also offers considerable potential for mitigating climate change. But delivering land sparing raises important challenges—in particular, identifying and promoting sustainable higher-yielding farm methods that are less environmentally harmful than current industrial agriculture, and devising mechanisms which ensure yield gains also deliver habitat conservation. These findings challenge current conservation orthodoxy but suggest that without novel collaborations between conservation and the agriculture sector we will not succeed in bending the curve of biodiversity loss. About the Royal Society The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world's most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. https://royalsociety.org/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel for exciting science videos and live events. https://www.youtube.com/royalsociety Find us on: Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/royalsociety.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theroyalsociety/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theroyalsociety/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-royal-society TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@royalsocietyscience Thu, 18 Jun 2026 23:10:35 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://watch.eeg.cl.cam.ac.uk https://watch.eeg.cl.cam.ac.uk/client/assets/images/icons/icon-1500x1500.png https://watch.eeg.cl.cam.ac.uk/videos/watch/ca2231cd-fb92-4b57-b654-bbea92e293e1 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://watch.eeg.cl.cam.ac.uk/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.