Book Review: Becoming Nature Positive

📖  This article is featured in illuminem’s Curated Booklist: the influential books shaping the world sustainability debate

Title: Becoming Nature Positive: Transitioning to a Safe and Just Future
Author: Marco Lambertini
Contributing Authors: Joe W. Bull, Johan Rockström, Harvey Locke, Leroy Little Bear, Eva Zabey, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, Dorothy Maseke, Sonja Sabita Teelucksingh
Publisher: Routledge Earthscan
Publication: June 2025
Sustainability topics: Nature🌳, Sustainable Lifestyle 🍃, Ethical Governance 🏛

Becoming Nature Positive: Transitioning to a Safe and Just Future, is a book about the vision, ambition and goal of building a future with more nature, not less. A future delivered by halting and reversing the recent exponential loss of nature – and in so doing, securing the stability of the Earth systems that support life, and our lives. 

Nature Positive is a positive and inspiring goal – but also one that requires deep change. 

This unprecedented new multi-author book discusses what Nature Positive means, why it is so crucial – and what it will take to move away from today’s nature-negative society and economy and embrace a new nature-positive development, economic and, perhaps above all, cultural model. It looks at the past, present and future scenarios of our most crucial, existential relationship of all: our relationship with nature, our mother, our home, who provides all we really need, all that really matters. 

It is a book also about the extraordinary times we live in. Times of unprecedented crises and opportunities, and times of disorientating paradoxes. Times of choices and times of consequences. Times that are at once daunting and exciting.

In the opening section of the book, after describing the genesis of the Nature Positive concept, I move to discuss the ‘Great Rise of Humanity’ with our recent exponential demographic growth, amazing scientific and technological advances, improved quality of life for many and in many regions of the world – but also its dark side, too often inadvertently or conveniently ignored: the “Great Decline of Nature”.  Every generation has somehow looked at their own time as special, for good or for bad. For my grandmother Ester it was to have lived through the horrors of two world wars. As for today’s world, forget space exploration, the internet or AI. What really makes our times truly unique in the history of our species and the planet, is how the natural world, its amazing diversity of life and its sophisticated provisioning and regulatory systems, are succumbing to the pressures inflicted by one species: us. We are the modern ‘living meteorite’ that is triggering mass extinction of species, deep change in the climate, and the collapse of entire ecological systems and services. This is the first great paradox of our time, the ‘Development Paradox’ of an economy that is growing by destroying its own foundation: nature, her resources and services. This is a development model that cannot last for much longer. The decline of the natural world is swiftly taking us towards irreversible tipping points. This is leading to the ‘Great Threat’ of our time, the twin crises of climate and nature.

At the same time, we are living an ‘awareness paradox’. We are undoubtedly the most environmentally aware generation of all time. Science has never been clearer and the awareness of our impact on the planet – and of the consequences this is having not only on nature per se but, in return, on ourselves – has never been greater. Today more and more people understand that climate change and biodiversity loss are not only about failing on our moral duty to coexist with the rest of life on the planet but are also directly affecting our society, economy and wellbeing – our very lives. They are a security issue for humanity. This is the ‘Great Awakening’ where I articulate the paradox of a society that understands the threat of our current trajectory but struggles to correct course under the pressure of powerful cultural, psychological, political and economic barriers to change.

All this leads us to the unique and extraordinary moment of the ‘Great Choice’. The choice of sticking with today’s business as usual, nature-negative model and its well-known disastrous consequences – or pivot to embrace the ‘Great Transition’ to a new nature-positive future. Here I explore the social and economic case for embracing a nature-positive transition and what needs to change. Change the way we see and position ourselves in the world. Stop taking nature for granted and abandon the delusional idea that we can continue to take from nature without giving back, destroy, overconsume and waste natural resources without consequences. Change the way we value nature, more holistically but also economically, as today nature is economically valuable only when it is dead. A tree becomes economically valuable when it is cut down and sold as timber, not while it is alive and contributing to irreplaceable services such as regulating water flow, rainfall, local climate, mitigating extreme weather and preventing floods, droughts and soil erosion. A fish is only considered to have value when is caught, killed and served as food – not while is contributing to the health of the ocean or river ecosystems, so important for the stability and liveability of the entire planet. Even flowers get a price tag when they are cut in bunches for our birthdays and anniversaries or confined to vases and garden beds, not when they are flourishing as wild flora in meadows and woods supporting populations of pollinators also crucial to our food security.

And I conclude my chapters  with an outlook that embraces both dark concern for the approaching danger of planetary tipping points and deep excitement for the opportunity of this generation, not the next one, to build a safer, more equitable and sustainable future for all: for present and future, human and non-human generations alike. 

The second part of the book is made up of five additional chapters with more than twenty contributions from inspirational thought leaders from all corners of the nature-positive movement, with deep dives on nature-positive science, society, business, finance and governance.

Joe Bull of Oxford University looks at the scientific basis of the nature-positive ambition and how net-positive biodiversity outcomes can be delivered. This chapter includes a contribution on planetary boundaries from Earth system scientist Johan Rockström.

Canadian conservationist Harvey Locke, co-founder of the ‘From Yellowstone to Yukon’ conservation initiative; Leroy Little Bear, Indigenous academic at Lethbridge University, Canada; CIFOR-ICRAF’s CEO Éliane Ubalijoro; Brigitte Baptiste, Rector of the Universidad EAN , Colombia; and Fuwen Wei of the Chinese Academy of Science, together explore the elements and cultural variations across the world of a nature-positive society.

Eva Zabey, CEO of Business for Nature, describes the journey business has been on from being a source of negative impact on nature to the increasing efforts to turn the tide, while Dorothy Maseke, Head of the African Natural Capital Alliance, looks at the critical role that finance plays in moving from a nature-negative to a nature-positive economy. 

In the final chapter, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez and Sonja Sabita Teelucksingh discuss the role of governments, regulation and international agreements, and the need for domestic and international policy coherence to critically support the nature-positive transition.

The book is a truly collaborative effort, endeavouring to cover all key dimensions of the Nature Positive concept, goal and strategy, providing many of the answers we need – as well as highlighting some of the key questions to address.

Becoming Nature Positive is published at a time when society is deeply confused and highly polarized, with resistance to change fuelled by powerful vested interest groups and their political executors. And at a time when many people in the world are deeply concerned about the future. Rightly so.   

But the overall message of the book, across all chapters, is one of action, change and extraordinary opportunity. Our ‘Great Chance’ to write the next page of humanity’s history. The future can be bright. We hold the pen. The choice is ours. The choice is clear. 

Nature Positive is our best response to the great, existential threat of planetary health collapse.

Our best plan to transition to a safe and just future.

Our best gift to our children and all the children of the world.

Our best way to fulfil our duty to coexist with the world’s amazing diversity of life forms.

Our only way to build a people-positive future.

Join the movement and the action. Onwards!

Becoming Nature Positive: Transitioning to a Safe and Just Future (Routledge Earthscan, 2025)

This review is part of illuminem’s Curated Booklist: the influential books shaping the sustainability debate. illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting exclusive insights from the world’s largest network of sustainability thought leaders. Their views expressed do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

Explore nature metrics of thousands of companies on illuminem Data Hub™.