Nexus Notes – Long-term thinking, CITES, emperor penguins at risk, and the Nature Relationship Index

Nexus Notes #9

Welcome to Nexus Notes. These are quick thoughts from me designed to share things I’ve been up to, been reading or just any other random stuff I’ve come across I think you may enjoy for the week. Think of it as a bit of a link-fest with a few accompanying thoughts.

Guess the image location. Let me know in the comments. The green swirl is thought to be duckweed. Credit: NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Hi folks!

Hope you’re having a great week. Here is your fortnightly dose of Nexus Notes — a list of things I’m pondering and exploring. Don’t forget to leave your guess of the location above in the comments!

I continue to ponder long-term thinking in a short-term world

I wrote this on Substack “notes” recently:

Daniel Kahneman taught us we think fast and slow.

But, as Roman Krznaric’s book The Good Ancestor explains so well, we also think short and long.

Short-term thinking has led us into all kinds of societal traps. We’re in a vicious cycle of quick wins and fast fixes without thinking of the long-term consequences of such actions.

We all need to work to consider the long-term implications of our actions. We need to think of the next generation and the several generations that follow.

The choice is ours: think short-term and reap the immediate rewards but leave a damaged planet for our children. Or, think and act long term, and leave the world in a better place for the generations that follow.

What are your examples of people thinking and acting long term despite living in a society that seems to value short-term actions?

Last week’s location

The Lofoten Islands in Norway. An absolutely magical spot. My wife and I spent our honeymoon hiking around the islands.

If you zoomed into the photo, you’ll see some massive currents, known there as moskenstraumen (maelstrom elsewhere). Named due to their location near the island of Mosken. I have first hand experience of the rough seas there having spent the entire trip across from Bodø on the back deck of the ship throwing up into a rubbish bin (absolute misery 🤢). Once there, though, we spent a magical few weeks island hopping from Røst to Værøy to the mainland.

Reine from the peak of Reinebringen. One of the more famous spots in the Lofotens.

Paper I’m reading

Ellis, E. C., Y. Malhi, H. Ritchie, J. Montana, S. Díaz, D. Obura, S. Clayton, M. Leach, L. Pereira, E. Marris, M. Muthukrishna, B. Fu, P. Frankopan, M. K. Grace, S. Barzin, K. Watene, N. Depsky, J. Pasanen, and P. Conceição. 2025. An aspirational approach to planetary futures. Nature. DOI:10.1038/s41586-025-09080-1

I was alerted to this by Krushil Watene, fellow Rutherford Discovery Fellow at the University of Auckland and co-author on the paper.

What a cool paper. This takes a more aspirational approach to empowering people to shape a better future for the planet. It builds on the Human Development Index in doing so with the aim of incentivising progress “towards a world in which humanity thrives together with the rest of life on Earth”. This will be helped by a Nature Relationship Index (NRI), which would sit alongside the HDI.

“Rather than assessing the state or dynamics of the biosphere, we propose the Nature Relationship Index (NRI), which would focus on measuring the progress of nations towards delivering mutually beneficial relationships among people and the rest of the living world in terms that people widely understand and value.”

Such progress might include ensuring equitable access to nature, using natural resources responsibly, and protecting ecosystems. Current measures like GDP fail to account for how we relate to the rest of life on Earth. This metric would track how well countries are doing on these fronts.

How could you not read the paper with that figure! Caption copied from the paper: “Healthy human relationships with nature are diverse, abundant, and continue to evolve. a–c, A limited sample of societal capabilities for shaping and sustaining thriving nature relationships—a full accounting is beyond the scope of this article. a, Traditional Indigenous and other place-based societies have deep histories of thriving relationships with nature. b,c, Industrial societies have evolved some capabilities to improve their nature relationships (b), but a major expansion of these will be required to shape planetary societies where people and nature thrive together (c). Figure adapted with permission from artwork by Yuka Estrada, ref. 190, AAAS.”.

I won’t go any further here as I may make this a focus of a future post.

Conversation piece of the week

As Antarctic sea ice shrinks, iconic emperor penguins are in more peril than we thought.

— Diana Bergstrom

Emperor penguins require “fast ice” — sea ice that’s connected to the Antarctic coast — for the rearing of their chicks.

“But climate change is upending the penguins’ carefully tuned biological cycles. The crucial sea ice they depend on is melting too early, plunging the chicks from some colonies into the sea before they are fully fledged.”

The piece summarises recent satellite research study that has shown population declines faster than model projections predicted over a 15-year period across 16 colonies.

It’s a sobering piece that highlights just how at risk they are from ongoing changes to fast-ice conditions. The conditions they require are quite specific (safe enough but close enough to open water to enable hunting) so minor changes can mean major population-level consequences.

CITES turns 50!

CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, has just turned 50. Check out the reflections by Secretary-General Ivonne Higuero here.

CITES isn’t perfect but has achieved many major things over the years in terms of reducing the trade in wildlife globally. We should be grateful for the conservationists, traders, policymakers and community leaders who helped make it happen, but also the 185 signatory Parties. Even if wildlife is still being exploited, much more would be without CITES.

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