Working with nature will help us tackle climate crisis and biodiversity loss

The Importance of Nature-Based Solutions for Sustainable Development

People cannot survive without the many benefits that nature provides through natural processes such as capturing energy from the sun, decomposing waste, storing carbon, recycling nutrients and achieving food security, water quantity and quality and climate regulation.

While we have long recognised the value of goods and services from nature, nature continues to be over-exploited and over-harvested for food, fuel and other materials.

Nature’s many contributions to people are increasingly recognised as the basis for protecting and restoring ecosystems. As our understanding of how and where biodiverse, complex ecosystems provide critical and life-enhancing services improves, we are changing how we use nature.

Nature-based solutions provide, maintain or enhance services delivered by nature to deliver benefits to human wellbeing while also addressing the climate and biodiversity crises. These are solutions to challenges like reducing coastal erosion, providing clean water, reducing flood risk and achieving sustainable food production.

Working with nature to develop solutions can deliver sustainable climate action to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and enable people to adapt to the negative impacts of climate change.

Restoring native forests in appropriate places is an example of a nature-based solution that can deliver climate, biodiversity, social and economic benefits simultaneously.

Planting forests in places where they replace a more diverse ecosystem is not a nature-based solution because it is harmful to biodiversity.

Different nature-based solutions provide different mixes of social, economic and biodiversity benefits, just like building a bypass around a town might provide different social and economic benefits to different groups of people. Some people benefit and others may face a cost through lost opportunities for income or a change in the services provided to them. Careful planning and monitoring of nature-based solutions can reduce the risk of negative outcomes, mitigate risks and help us to learn how to better implement them in the future or in other locations.

Nature’s many contributions to people are increasingly recognised as the basis for protecting and restoring ecosystems

The Need for Monitoring and Management

Imagine if we designed and built 50 water-treatment plants to provide clean water to people, but once they were built no one monitored the water or maintained the equipment. While we might expect that a natural ecosystem would fare better than a water treatment plant if left to its own devices, even nature-based solutions need to be monitored and managed.

The Connecting Nature project measured the impact of nature-based projects in cities on climate change adaptation, health and wellbeing, social cohesion and sustainable economic development across Europe. This project demonstrated the great potential for job creation and economic benefits from the deployment and ongoing management of nature-based solutions.

The Complexity and Adaptability of Nature-Based Solutions

Natural ecosystems are far more complex than the “grey infrastructure” that we normally put in place to manage the supply of water or prevent coastal erosion. Nature-based solutions change over time. If well managed, they can increase in complexity and even improve as the ecosystem develops.

A biodiverse nature-based solution can adapt to changing conditions, with different species thriving in different kinds of situations. For example, a diverse grassland can better withstand drought conditions than a grassland with just a few species, because the chances of having a drought-resistant species in the mix is higher when you have many species.

The Challenges and Opportunities

There are challenges involved in deploying nature-based solutions more widely. There is currently a lack of ability to learn from solutions that are already in place. Many nature-based solutions have already been used in Ireland, from green walls and sustainable urban drainage systems in cities to multi-species pastures, coastal defences and restored forests.

However, most of these are not adequately mapped, documented and monitored. We are therefore losing opportunities to learn from what we already have.

The Slowaters project uses nature-based solutions to

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

1. SDG 13: Climate Action

   • Target 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters
   • Target 13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning
   • Target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising, and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning
   • Target 13.a: Implement the commitment undertaken by developed-country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation and fully operationalize the Green Climate Fund through its capitalization as soon as possible
   • Target 13.b: Promote mechanisms for raising capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management in least developed countries and small island developing states, including focusing on women, youth, and local and marginalized communities

   The article discusses nature-based solutions that address the climate crisis and help people adapt to the negative impacts of climate change. It mentions restoring native forests as an example of a nature-based solution that delivers climate benefits. This aligns with SDG 13’s targets of strengthening resilience to climate-related hazards, integrating climate change measures into policies, and promoting effective climate change planning and management.

2. SDG 15: Life on Land

   • Target 15.1: By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration, and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains, and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements
   • Target 15.2: By 2020, promote the implementation of sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests, and substantially increase afforestation and reforestation globally
   • Target 15.5: Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity, and protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species
   • Target 15.9: By 2020, integrate ecosystem and biodiversity values into national and local planning, development processes, poverty reduction strategies, and accounts

   The article emphasizes the importance of protecting and restoring ecosystems and mentions nature-based solutions that can deliver biodiversity benefits. This aligns with SDG 15’s targets of conserving and restoring terrestrial ecosystems, promoting sustainable forest management, reducing habitat degradation and biodiversity loss, and integrating ecosystem values into planning and development processes.

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

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Source: irishtimes.com

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