The Nature of Nature
Why working on biodiversity is unique, inspiring, frustrating, and utterly necessary.
🪸 We’re Superorganism, the first VC for startups that benefit biodiversity. Each month we publish thoughts from the frontline, company updates, and a round-up of new happenings in the nature tech world.
We view climate change and biodiversity loss as flip sides of the same coin: evidence that our species is operating out of sync with our planetary boundaries. We need to address both to ensure well-being into the future.
Over the past decade we’ve seen an influx of talent from Silicon Valley into climate tech. Inspired by breakouts like Tesla, shocked into action by increasingly dire climate reports, there has been a wave of incredible talent moving to climate. We are just beginning to see the first wave of founders in nature tech.
To help galvanize those on the fence to take the leap, here are a few aspects of biodiversity loss that make it a unique problem set, at once inspiring, frustrating, and utterly necessary.
Biodiversity loss can be rapid and obvious.
Biodiversity loss can be seen in years. While some effects are generational and hard to perceive (see: shifting baseline syndrome), many effects are visible in a lifetime. The next time you speak with an elder in your life, ask how the wildlife has changed: How have the fish and game caught changed? Is there still birdsong in the morning, and are there frogs croaking at night?
This is true for loss, but it is also true for gain. Nature has a power for rapid recovery in a way that climate doesn't. Our climate work will incrementally lessen the worst effects over our generation, and most of us won’t see long-term benefits in our lifetimes.
But under the right conditions, nature can recover well within a lifetime. Species populations can rebound, secondary forests can grow, reefs can recover. Last month, the scimitar-horned oryx was downgraded from Extinct in the Wild to Endangered. This is monumental: a species that we had functionally exterminated, with no living individuals remaining except in zoos, now roaming in herds through the savannahs of Chad.
Nature's potential for rapid recovery can result in major wins on a multi-decade or even single-decade timescale, which can drive the flywheel of popular support, incremental policy, and positive reinforcement.
Biodiversity is local and visible.
On a day-to-day basis, climate change can often feel abstract, an issue of such global magnitude that individual actions can feel insignificant. Changes in nature, meanwhile, are extremely visible, in both good directions and bad. You can fly less and not see the result, but you can watch a planted tree grow for years.
Clearcut forests, bleached reefs, grasslands turned to parking lots are all stark and personal. Replanted forests, no-mow May yards, protected local areas, are personal too. People feel ownership and agency about things they can see, touch, participate in, derive wonder from. Human connection to nature has underpinned over a century of conservation work, and with good reason. Nature loss feels personal.
We’ve found that many of the people who work in climate are there because they had a catalyzing moment with nature: the wildfires in California, coral reefs bleaching, storms destroying coastal towns without mangroves to protect them. Because of nature’s capacity for renewal, it has a narrative superpower. With every individual, community, and startup that preserves and restores species, and ecosystems, we paint an optimistic picture of a more vibrant, abundant future.
Extinction is permanent.
In the history of the planet, CO2 levels and corresponding global temperatures have risen and fallen. While we’re far from managing our atmosphere well, it is theoretically (eventually) possible to reverse climate change, through reducing and eliminating emissions, and drawing down excess CO2. In this sense, climate change is non-permanent (Kevin wrote about this concept here).
But extinction is permanent. When a species goes extinct, its genetic information is gone. We have never de-extincted a species (although some are trying), and even if we can recreate these species, it remains unknown how well they’ll adapt back to their former ecosystems. We can walk species back from the edge (oryx!) but not from beyond. There is no more thylacine, no more passenger pigeon, no more of the 21 other species that went extinct in 2023.
This is important because ecosystems rely on the diversity of species that live there to maintain resilience and function. There are many hidden feedback loops that we don't know, and may never know (example: invasive rats on islands alter the behavior of coral reef fish). The life support services nature provides for free can’t currently be replicated at that scale. Species go, ecosystems go, we go.
This is an aspect of working on biodiversity loss that is harder than climate, and more urgent. In a world where 1 million species are at risk of extinction, this urgency needs to be shouted from the treetops.
We don’t need to resign ourselves to this future. We can shape a future with nature interwoven through our daily lives, in balance and abundant. We can reverse climate change and build a prosperous world powered by renewables. We can make whatever future we damn well choose.
We just need to choose a good one.
Notes from the Field
Updates from our portfolio companies, and from us at Superorganism
🍫 Planet A Foods has had a banner month: they announced their $15.4M Series A raise, reached a major milestone at 1 million cereal packages with ChoViva sold, launched their collaboration with Lindt, and won the “New Product Showcase" award for the most innovative product at ISM Cologne, the biggest fair for sweets and confectionary in 2024!
Planet A Foods is urgently looking for new business development & Social Media team members based in Germany: Business Development & Social Media Manager
🐠 Announced last week at Davos 2024, INVERSA launched a partnership with Japanese leather conglomerate, Harizury, in a new line of black glossy invasive python mini bags.
🍄 Funga held their officewarming in Austin, giving Tom the grand tour and hosting nature tech attendees from Pachama, Mast, Gratitude Railroad, and more!
🪸 As for us at Superorganism, in January we…
Visited Davos and spoke on Investing in Nature 2.0
Spoke at the NOAA and Smithsonian Summit on Ocean Biodiversity
Participated in UN World Logic Day conference in Austin
Were published in a Keep Cool newsletter on biodiversity
Ecosystem news
💵 Nature Finance
Report on Natural Climate Solutions | UBS
The full list of TNFD early adopters was announced. Interested in joining? Register here.
Transparency standard to inform global response to biodiversity crisis | GRI
Environmental Finance's Biodiversity Insight 2024 | EF
UNEP Report Exposes Disparity Between NbS, Nature-negative Finance Flows | IISD
What’s Driving Demand for Biodiversity Credits | Eric Wilburn
🏔️ Nature Finance, Davos edition
New nature-based frameworks keep biodiversity in spotlight at Davos | Reuters
What was the ‘nature’ of Davos this year? | Nature4Climate
Davos News | Nature Positive
Accelerating Biodiversity and Ecosystem Reporting | Planet
Ethic announced its new Nature2 initiative | LinkedIn
⚡️ Climate and Nature
$5 trillion of nature-related economic risks will amplify climate change | Oxford
Old forests are critically important for slowing climate change and merit immediate protection from logging | The Conversation
Five-part series on forest carbon credits and the voluntary market | Mongabay
The 20 Farming Families Who Use More Water From the Colorado River Than Some Western States | ProPublica
The dubious climate gains of turning soil into a carbon sink | FT
Urban Farming Has a Surprisingly High Climate Toll | Bloomberg
🛰️ Conservation and Technology
These climate tech startups are championing biodiversity | Climate Insider
Nature 4.0: A networked sensor system for integrated biodiversity monitoring | Wiley
Great white sighting may reveal a 'holy grail' of shark science | CNN
Mapping Critical Areas for Biodiversity & Nature’s Contributions to People | TNC
Just two northern white rhinos remain. The species’ first IVF pregnancy could save them from extinction | Guardian
How AI is decoding the animal kingdom | FT
Swarovski Optik and Marc Newson create the world's first smart binoculars | Wallpaper
Satellite mapping reveals extensive industrial activity at sea | Nature
🔬 Science and Conservation
Teaching Nature to Break Man-made Chemical Bonds | Caltech
An Ancient Woolly Mammoth Left a Diary in Her Tusk | NYT
Chimpanzees are dying from our colds — these scientists are trying to save them | Nature
A landmark environmental law looks ahead | Science
NASA scientist on 2023 temperatures: “We’re frankly astonished” | Ars Technica
Majority of land hermit crab species now use trash for shells | Washington Post
America spends $1.2 billion a year on endangered species, but almost half goes to just 2 kinds of fish | Fortune
🪲 Other content we liked
Imagine 2200: The 2024 climate fiction contest collection | Grist
Hawaii's out-of-control, totally bizarre fight over stray cats | Vox
People Have a Right to Climate Data | NYT
The Crochet Coral Reef Keeps Spawning, Hyperbolically | NYT
How will we know when local communities benefit from carbon offset schemes? | Mongabay
In Colombia, a Park for Anacondas and Anteaters, Where Ranchers Are Now Rangers | NYT
🤝 Friends of the fund
Apply to Earth Law Center's NGA's Nature-to-Business (N2B) Sodality 6-week immersive program here.
Submit your ideas for the new Bezos Earth Fund $1M Greenhouse Gas Removal Ideation Prize on Experiment.
Profile on our brand partners, Goodside | Design By Women
It’s time to tell the truth about nature | Dr. Zoe Balmforth via MCJ
Ground Effect is seeking a Natural Capital Investment Director