Let's stop inventing and defending terms, and just talk about how nature can help people address the local problems they face

What are nature-based solutions anyway?

Nature-based solutions may have been hot topic at Adaptation Futures in Cape Town last week, but I discovered that there is immense confusion over the proliferation of terms and associated acronyms around nature’s role in adaptation.

Across the many sessions I attended, I heard the terms nature-based solutions (NbS), ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA), ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (eco-DRR), ecosystem-based management (EbM), not to be confused with ecosystem-based mitigation (also EbM), green or natural infrastructure, ecological engineering, the list goes on. And often people, especially those working in government and on the ground, are asking: what’s the difference? Does it matter? 

This confusion isn't just a headache, it's dangerous as it risks undermining the credibility of those advocating nature’ value for adaptation. There's a real need to avoid jargon, especially at the local level. I came away from this meeting with the strong sense that we need to stop inventing/re-inventing and defending terms, and just talk about how nature can help people address the local problems they face. If the experts can’t define things consistently, how can we expect practitioners and policy makers to take us seriously?

So, to all of us working in this space: please can we agree on and stick to a robust typology for NbS? 

I started the meeting with one definition of NbS, but ended with this one. Nature-based Solutions are actions that enhance and work with nature to help people mitigate against and adapt to the effects of change and disasters. As such NbS is the umbrella term under which all these other versions comfortably sit. Might that work for most of us?

Where we lack climate leadership above, we find inspiration and action on the ground

Some observations on the Adaptation Futures conference in Cape Town

I am relieved to find that nature-based solutions (NbS) is a hot topic at Adaptation Futures this week. There is growing recognition in the adaptation community that NbS are important with more and more funding being directed towards them. However, though I was pleased to discover that adaptation engineers are engaging more with NbS, it seems many are not sufficiently informed about need for diverse natural ecosystems. It is crucial to work with nature to enhance its capacity to adapt to climate change, and this means supporting biodiversity and maintaining connectivity. A monoculture is not an NbS because it won't deliver solutions for the longterm. Unlike, a natural diverse ecosystem, it is not resilient to climate change or disease. Yet too often what people are calling NbS are monocultures or other interventions involving natural resources which don’t support nature’s adaptation and can therefore result in maladaptation for people. Adaptation is dynamic; we need to support an ecosystem’s capacity to adapt and thereby help us to adapt to climate change.

Returning to broader take-homes of the meeting. Perhaps the most encouraging of all was this. Climate action is happening and increasing despite chaos in government. It seems the more unsteady the political landscape/structures above us, the more steadfast the action around us. Where we lack climate leadership above, we find inspiration & action on the ground. What emerged from the meeting is the need to engage locally and with businesses. Time and time again I heard: adaptation action won’t be sustained if local communities aren’t involved right from the start and if the benefits of actions aren’t made clear.