The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has released two reports. One offers insights and tools to support the more sustainable use of wild plants, animals, fungi and algae, arguing that the biodiversity crisis threatens the billions of people who benefit from the use of wild species for food, fuel or income. The other reports that there is a global focus on short-term profits and economic growth, meaning that market prices do not fully reflect the many ways in which nature is of value to people’s quality of life.

This article in The Atlantic explores the role that phosphorus - long thought to be a limiting factor in the productivity of the biosphere - plays in the food system. Phosphorus fertiliser has historically come from bones, phosphate rock deposits and human waste. Today, while there are fears of a shortage of mined phosphorus, phosphorus runoff also pollutes water and harms aquatic ecosystems. Companies are now trying to close the phosphorus loop by recovering the fertiliser from human sewage and animal waste.