Nature-based Solutions — the offsets and trade-offs in a changing landscape.
Nature-based Solutions (NbS) involve working with nature to address societal challenges, providing benefits for both human well-being and biodiversity. Defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits”, the role of NbS has gained the world’s attention as a tool in the fight against the nature and climate crises.
Globally, land-cover changes via agriculture, deforestation for timber and crops, urban development and more, are having wide-ranging impacts on nature and the world’s climate. In an article reported on by Carbon Brief, land-use change has now affected ‘almost a third’ of world’s terrain since 1960, while recent coverage of the trade-related ‘deforestation footprint’ of countries shows the effective outsourcing and importing of damaging land-use change by many nations. These human activities are transforming the natural landscape, with a view of land as functional only for economic activities, while enabling negligence of the global scope of climate and land use change. This view risks the inherent worth within natural landscapes, and the utilisation of ‘natural capital’ and ‘ecosystem services’ can help illuminate these benefits. Approaches and technologies that assist land managers in decision-making can ensure the best outcomes for both business and biodiversity.
NbS are needed more than ever to enhance the resilience of ecosystems, their capacity for renewal and the provision of services, while enabling social development and improving wellbeing that align with the contextual cultural and societal values. Often it is areas at risk in the realms of food security, climate change, water security, human health, disaster risk, social and economic development, that can most benefit from NbS.
A first global systematic review of the effectiveness of nature-based solutions by the Nature-based Solutions Initiative highlights potential trade-offs to be avoided and evidence gaps where further study is needed. For example, a common carbon offsetting method of tree planting, without sight of the local context, can in fact risk compromising long-term carbon storage, human adaptation and efforts to preserve biodiversity. An emphasis on diverse, intact natural ecosystems, opposed to fast-growing tree plantations, is often better placed to deliver climate mitigation and carbon storage. NbS must be embedded within offsetting schemes, to optimise results for landscapes, communities, and climate. The misuse of NbS must also be avoided, and their limitations understood, to prevent greenwash of poor quality nature-based ‘offsets’ and neglect of the crucial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that must happen in tandem with carbon offsetting. This is where implementing NbS within policy is key, to provide guidance for successful, sustainable NbS and offsettings that avoid social and environmental pitfalls.
By correctly integrating NbS, the trade-offs between the production of economic benefits for development are better balanced with the current and future production of the full range of ecosystems services with site-specific natural and cultural contexts. This can achieve that rare thing — a positive intersection of climate change, land use, food and nature.
