01 The lake
I grew up by a big lake in southeastern China, where water, low hills and mist have inspired poems and paintings for centuries.
As a child, nature was where I felt most at home. The lake and the hills were my first companions, where I could read, imagine, and simply be myself.
02 The change
Years later, I watched those familiar landscapes begin to change. Cities expanded, animals disappeared, and I realised that the places we love are not guaranteed to remain.
That was what first led me to science.
03 The science
I studied ecology and environmental science, and spent the years that followed working with biodiversity. I wanted to understand how nature works — and how we might help it stay.
But science taught me something else.
04 The gap
We already know so much about the living world. We can map it, measure it, sequence it and watch it change from space. And yet, knowledge does not automatically become understanding.
What is scientifically visible can still remain invisible to society.
05 ClimateLens
That is why I created ClimateLens.
It brings together two parts of me that once seemed to belong to different lives: the child who wanted to tell stories about nature, and the scientist trained to understand it.
I use storytelling, visual language and scientific thinking to help biodiversity knowledge travel further — beyond papers and datasets, into the way people see, value and act for nature.
— Chenyu