UK aims to lead efforts on biodiversity crisis with first nature envoy

The government has appointed the UK's first envoy for nature, a former environment campaigner described as "the environmentalist's environmentalist", who will be charged with forging global agreement on halting the precipitous decline of species.

- Fiona Harvey, Patrick Greenfield

Ruth Davis, the new special representative for nature, is in Colombia for the start of two weeks of vital talks that will decide the global response to the biodiversity crisis. The UK has played a leading role in such efforts in the past, and Davis helped draw up a global pledge on deforestation that was one of the main outcomes of the UN Cop26 climate summit hosted in Glasgow in 2021.

She will report to both the foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the environment secretary, Steve Reed. The appointment of a nature envoy, first revealed by the Guardian, is a first step in the government's plan to put the UK at the centre of global efforts to stave off environmental collapse.