British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has re-appointed Indian-origin educationist Yadvinder Malhi as a trustee on the Natural History Museum Board in London. Appointed for a second term of four years, Professor Malhi will oversee the institution’s role in nature conservation in an honorary advisory role. Earlier in May 2020, he was appointed for the first time in the board.
Indian-origin educator Yadvinder Malhi has been reappointed by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to the board of trustees of the Natural History Museum in London. Professor Malhi has been appointed to a four-year term extension and will assume an honorary advising position in managing the institution’s involvement in environment protection.
He was first named to the board earlier in May 2020. “My aim is to support research and public-policy collaboration at this wonderful, respected, and well-known institution,” Professor Malhi stated, expressing his satisfaction over his position.
How do we understand the relationship with the natural world?
He stated that the most important question is how to comprehend and mend our relationship with nature. On the occasion of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday in 2020, Malhi, an ecosystem professor at the University of Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment, was named a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for his services.
Malhi advocates global equality towards conservation
Mallhi, 50, a former president of the British Ecological Society and the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation, is a strong advocate of global equity in the field of science and conservation.
Malhi is a professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment. He was named a CBE in 2020 for his contributions to ecosystem research in the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Birthday Honours List. In addition, he holds the positions of Jackson Senior Research Fellow at Oriel College, University of Oxford, and Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery.
The Department for Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) stated of Malhi that his research interests center on how the living world is responding to environmental change on a global scale, including climate change, how preserving and interacting with nature can help mitigate and adapt to climate change, and how we can enable nature recovery at scale and stop the ongoing global decline in biodiversity. While savannas and tropical forests have been the bulk of his study, it also mentions that more recent studies have examined the difficulty of natural recovery in the United Kingdom.
Malhi, who is in his mid-50s, is enthusiastic in promoting global fairness in the practice of science and conservation. He has served as president of both the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation and the British Ecological Society. He stated that he has been “enthralled” by the Natural History Museum from his early trips as a youngster when he was originally named to the board in May 2020.
His nomination was made in compliance with the Governance Code on Public Appointments of the UK Cabinet Office, which mandates that any appointee’s major political engagement during the previous five years be disclosed. Malhi has not declared any political action that would be classified as running for office, giving a speech in public, making a gift that can be tracked down, or holding office.
