Scientists and academics from around the world gathered in Amsterdam late last month to celebrate the winner of this year’s Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. Often referred to as the “Nobel Prize for the environment,” the Tyler Prize goes to a scientist “whose work has advanced environmental science, conservation, and sustainability worldwide.”

However, the Tyler Prize committee does more than celebrate breakthroughs in scientific research. Like other prestigious international prizes, it often has political overtones, serving to focus international attention on issues of global reach. And in choosing Toby Kiers as this year’s laureate, the Tyler committee has highlighted work that not only has important implications for tackling climate change, but also showcases politically important questions for meaningfully addressing complex global environmental issues.

Kiers is an evolutionary biologist whose work focuses on global fungi networks, rendering visible and politically salient the living soil beneath our feet. As she does in her TED Talks and classrooms, Kiers used her keynote speech in Amsterdam this month to encourage her audience to imagine the world of underground fungal networks, a separate kingdom of life. It is a world that not only is an essential part of the planet’s circulatory system but also collectively absorbs 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the earth yearly. Yet, humans remain largely blind to it due to what she calls our “above-ground bias.”