Reflections on the Becoming Nature Positive essay, Lambertini et al., 2025
Becoming Nature Positive reads less like a manifesto and more like a compass for the decades ahead. It lays the intellectual and moral foundation for what “Nature Positive” truly means – not a slogan, but a measurable global goal: halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 and achieve full recovery by 2050.
Written by a coalition of leading figures from WWF, IUCN, WBCSD, UNEP, as well as the scientific, academic and indigenous communities, the book brings together conservationists, scientists, economists and business leaders to offer one of the most comprehensive syntheses to date of thinking around nature restoration. This diversity of voices makes the book particularly concrete: it bridges science, policy and practice, showing that a Nature Positive future will require collaboration at all levels and across all sectors.
The evolution of "Nature Positive" from a vague aspiration to a key goal for biodiversity - comparable to net zero for climate - seems programmatic. In the wake of the Covid pandemic and the spotlight on biodiversity at Davos and COP15, leaders from all walks of life have finally accepted that the health of economies and societies depends on the health of ecosystems.
The story traces a double trajectory: unprecedented human development(the Great Rise) paralleled by the steepest ecological decline in millennia(the Great Decline), all in a single human lifetime. This honesty is refreshing. The book refuses to romanticize nature or demonize humanity. The authors remind us that "the exploitative relationship began a long time ago", from hunter-gatherers to the post-war "Great Acceleration".
The Anthropocene, a term referring to our current period where humanity has become a planetary force of change, is sometimes also referred to as the “Capitalocene”, as if nature’s decline was solely linked to capitalism. Yet human pressures on nature predate modern economies. Tens of thousands of years ago, as humans migrated across the continents, the extinction of local megafauna soon followed. Species like the woolly mammoth in Europe, the mastodon in North America, several species of kangaroo in Australia, and the giant sloth in South America did not stand a chance against such an efficient predator. Scientists reason that megafauna were hunted to extinction either for their value as a food source or because of their threat to survival and resources. But our ancestors soon discovered that exploitation has its limits. The unsustainable harvesting of natural resources soon led to starvation, malnutrition, and disease.
Since then, humanity’s story is one of shifting relationships with the natural world: from migratory groups that learned hard ecological limits, to settled societies whose technologies increasingly obscured them. The pattern of exploitation is ancient; what is unprecedented is the scale. In one lifetime, the world’s human population has tripled, the biosphere has contracted, and human activity has breached multiple planetary boundaries.
Despite this trajectory, the authors reject any fatalism. They point out that the same post-war period that accelerated environmental degradation also gave rise to the modern conservation movement; proof that technological progress and ecological awareness have always coexisted. This duality makes the story unique: neither nostalgic nor apocalyptic. The loss of balance is both ecological and cultural.
Governments still spend $1,700 billion a year on environmentally damaging subsidies - around 2% of global GDP - while investing far less in protection or restoration. "No country today invests more in protecting nature than it does in destroying it," says Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, Director of the Global Environment Facility. But he insists that this balance can change if we reframe the crisis as an opportunity for systemic transformation.
The argument is simple but profound: Nature Positive is People Positive. The biodiversity crisis is first and foremost a human security crisis. By dismantling the false opposition between nature and economy - bearing in mind that half of the world's GDP is heavily or moderately dependent on nature, while businesses destroy some $7,300 billion of natural capital every year - we can reduce the externalized costs that society always ends up absorbing. Valuing nature means recognizing it in our decisions.
This framing particularly resonates with our work at July Advisory, as we accompany the work around the metrics defining the good ecological state of the ocean(State of Nature Metrics), currently co-designed by the Nature Positive Initiative (NPI), the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA) and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Ocean degradation is a reflection of our economic choices: overfishing, pollution, short-termist economic logic spread over centuries. Today, 34% of the world's fish stocks are overexploited. And while the ocean is acidifying, bottom trawling is making the situation even worse: its emissions exceed those of global aviation.
But rather than portraying the ocean as a victim, we can make it both the front line and the main space for solutions: a source of food, energy, carbon storage and climate regulation. Yet these benefits remain largely invisible in national accounts and corporate balance sheets. Hence the importance of devising credible metrics for marine ecosystems, to accurately represent their ecological condition and recovery trajectory.
In this reflection, we also appreciated the highlighting of Indigenous and local knowledge. Several of the authors frequently cite Indigenous leaders and worldviews, but the question remains: have they been genuinely integrated into the frameworks guiding measurement and governance? As we have seen in marine contexts, ecological integrity and cultural continuity are inseparable; metrics that ignore that connection risk losing legitimacy.
Faced with the Great Transition, we are now in a position to move from diagnosis to the design of solutions. And we are faced with the key question: how do we measure and report? The call for integrity, transparency and trust in reporting reflects the values we seek to embed in our consensus-building work.
Pragmatism is another recurring theme as the authors caution against “making perfect the enemy of good,” reminding us that corporate strategies will remain “black boxes” until metrics converge. This realism — paired with critiques of “green-hushing”, where companies deliberately underreport nature-related progress to avoid scrutiny, exposes the tension between ambition and accountability that consulting firms, investors, and policymakers must now navigate.
Ultimately, Becoming Nature Positive offers both urgency and optimism. Its structure - The Great Rise, Decline, Awakening, Transition - reflects not only the history of the planet, but also the evolution of our own profession. Ecological strategy consulting has become a translation business: helping institutions link scientific evidence, political frameworks, societal values and economic and financial realities.
Becoming Nature Positive also reminds us that the data we collect, standardize, and interpret is not neutral. It shapes how society perceives the living world and how it chooses to act. The next decade will demand indicators and metrics that are not only scientifically rigorous but also communicatively powerful, able to inspire confidence, attract capital, and guide collective action.
As Sylvia Earle puts it, "We are in the balance point of time: the decisions of the next ten years will determine the next ten thousand." It's up to us to ensure that the data we shape today guides decision-makers towards a positive future for Nature.
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