2023-09-21 17:50:00
This year, the CNRS gold medal was awarded to ecologist Sandra Lavorel. This is one of the most prestigious French scientific awards, which she won thanks to her crucial work on the link between biodiversity and human societies.
At 58 years old, having worked in France, Australia and New Zealand, Sandra Lavorel has been a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) for thirty years. According to the institution, she was “a pioneer in the definition and analysis of the services provided by biodiversity to human societies”. His research “works towards a better understanding of environmental issues”, underlined the CEO of the CNRS, Antoine Petit. As reported by AFP, she is the seventh woman to receive the CNRS gold medal since its creation in 1954.
The researcher notably showed that “changes in climate and land use affect the morphology and physiology of plants”. Pioneering work which today makes it possible to “develop landscape evolution scenarios useful for planning policies”. For her, the subject of biodiversity goes “beyond species threatened or in danger of extinction”, because biodiversity “underlies a whole set of functions for the proper functioning of planet Earth”.
Moreover, Sandra Lavorel was a member of IPBES, a committee of experts working under the aegis of the UN, nicknamed the “IPCC of biodiversity”, and is currently participating in an evaluation of the links between biodiversity, water, food, health and climate.
If she cites “land degradation and the use of species” as the first threat to biodiversity, before pollution and climate change, she believes that “it is the combination of these threats which is really very harmful”.
For the researcher, this subject “must be the concern of all economic sectors, not just the Ministry of the Environment”.
With the idea that “nature contributes to the well-being of humans”, and can help them adapt to major upheavals, such as climate change. This involves, for example, reasoned forest management, or genetic diversity of crops.
Hoping that society “progresses in this understanding that we are part of nature and that we are not next to it”.
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