Nature-Based Solutions – What can they really achieve?

The biodiversity and climate crises are increasingly threatening planetary biodiversity and dependent livelihoods. Linkages between these two crises are already recognised by science and policy, but they are still not sufficiently addressed in integrated manner in practice. Nature-based solutions (NBS) and ecosystem-based approaches have the potential to enhance these synergies and deliver multiple benefits for ecosystems, biodiversity, climate change mitigation and adaptation, human well-being among other objectives. This topic was explored during the "International workshop on strengthening synergies for biodiversity and climate in multifunctional landscapes", organized by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN). Sandra Naumann, Senior Fellow at the Ecologic Institute, was a keynote speaker, presenting on the potential but also limitations of NBS to achieve climate and biodiversity goals.

The workshop tackled different topics:

1. Synergies for biodiversity and climate in the international science and policy arena,
2. Tackling trade-offs – How to maximize co-benefits in multifunctional landscapes?,
3. Participation and collaboration – How to reconcile stakeholder interests in multi-functional landscapes?,
4. Funds and finances – How to unlock funding to scale up synergies for biodiversity and climate?, and
5. Key recommendations – How to strengthen the science-policy-practice interface to scale up synergies for biodiversity and climate?

In her keynote speech, Sandra Naumann first introduced the concept of multifunctionality of NBS and presented estimated benefits of using NBS for ecosystem restoration. She also outlined limitations of NBS and challenges to deliver these benefits such as limited land availability, ecological constraints, risk of non-permanence, the lack of a comprehensive evidence base on the effectiveness of NBS and the absence of cross-sectoral cooperation. She concluded by presenting the need for policy action (e.g. setting ambitious and binding targets, introducing NBS standards, providing investment) and research (e.g. monitoring and evaluating the performance of NBS, identifying trade-offs in the joint pursuit of biodiversity and climate goals).

Sandra Naumann's presentation is available for download.