Dr Hila Levy (2008, Biology) publishes environmental paper in Science
Exeter alumna, Dr Hila Levy (2008, Biology), has co-authored a paper titled ‘Mainstreaming Nature in US Federal Policy’. Published in Science, one of the world’s most cited journals, the paper examines how the US government (although its suggestions are relevant to governments elsewhere) can include ‘integrated approaches’ to nature in its decision-making. Dr Levy’s extensive and varied career and educational background inform an interdisciplinary approach that will reach Science’s worldwide readership of over one million people.
Dr Levy and her colleagues point out that the natural world is often seen as a separate field of government rather than a factor affecting multiple layers of government. When nature is overlooked, valuable cost-benefit considerations can be missed.
The usual decision-making framework consists of accounting for assets, considering options, and evaluating these options, before coming to a final decision. However, Dr Levy and her colleagues propose a ‘cohesive framework’ named CASE that can be used alongside traditional methods. CASE layers over these stages the criterion that a decision should be ‘cross-sectoral, appropriate, strategic, and evidence-based’. With these additions nature can be acknowledged and accounted for as an asset, meaning that even in non-environmental projects, the costs and benefits of considering nature can be applied. This approach ‘puts nature on an equal, not preferred, footing’, opening up an extra dimension to decision-making processes and offering the holistic benefits not only considering nature but ‘involving individuals with environmental perspectives, expertise, and authorities’, including ‘tribes and Indigenous communities’ in decision-making.
Dr Levy et al also highlight what the US and other governments are already doing. Complementing the CASE framework, the US’ 2022 15-year national strategy ‘embeds natural asset reporting into official US economic statistics’. Considering natural assets alongside economic or social assets means that decision-makers can make evidence-based choices based on the full range of information. This is an approach that can be adopted not only by the US government, but by governments, organisations, and institutions across the world. Exeter College, for example, has committed to tracking its emissions, making the data collected available to inform decisions across the entire college and make Exeter more sustainable.
Since studying for her MSc in Biology at Exeter, Dr Levy has worked in US national security and international relations, as well as on science and environmental management. She holds two additional degrees from Oxford—an MSt in Historical Research and a DPhil in Zoology, as well as an MPhil, MS, and BS from other institutions. She has also worked in positions as varied as translation, lecturing, and national security. Currently, she is the Assistant Director for International Affairs at the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
With such a range of experience and expertise, Dr Levy is uniquely well-placed to understand how nature impacts national and global security. She highlights Joe Biden’s 2022 statement: ‘the world’s interconnected oceans, lands, waterways and other ecosystems… contain biodiversity vital to food security, clean air and water, a stable climate, and health and wellbeing. Threats to these systems… impact governments’ abilities to meet basic human needs and contribute to political, economic, and social instability’.
Dr Levy writes that she is ‘looking to make the world a better place’, and in the unique range of her expertise, she can implement the interdisciplinary approach for which she and her colleagues advocate. The article clearly illustrates the benefits of ‘Mainstreaming Nature’, and can be accessed on Science’s website or by clicking here.
