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?