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Professor Andrew Balmford FRS, winner of the Royal Society Environment Prize Lecture, will deliver his prize lecture on 16 June 2026, at the Royal Society in London, at 6.30pm.The Royal Society Environment Medal and Lecture is awarded annually for outstanding and sustained work in environmental science. Professor Andrew Balmford FRS is recognised with the Environment Medal for groundbreaking contributions to conservation science, having built transformative partnerships and redefining the landscape of conservation education. He is Professor of Conservation Science in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge.
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.
In this lecture, Professor Balmford will explain how 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.
Delivering land sparing raises important challenges. These include 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.
This lecture is free to attend. Registration is recommended if attending in person, otherwise availability cannot be guaranteed. Doors will open to the public at 6.00pm.
The lecture will also be livestreamed on the Royal Society website and on the Royal Society YouTube channel.
Find out more:
https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2026/06/environment-prize-lecture/
Image credit © iStock.com / valio84sl
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6-9 Carlton House Terrace, SW1Y5 London, United Kingdom, 6 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AG, United Kingdom
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