A new Nature-based Solutions (NbS) Valuation Report by Northeastern University and UNDP on climate-informed cost-benefit analysis in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region has recently been released.
Over the last decade, UNDP has worked with countries to deploy NbS as an approach to meeting the multiple interconnected challenges of climate change disruption to local economies, ecosystems, and biodiversity in these regions.
The Valuation Report summarizes a scoping exercise that surveyed existing toolkits to support cost-benefit analysis of NbS and analyzed these toolkits to assess their appropriateness for meeting the needs of policy-makers, as well as climate change, ecosystems and biodiversity practitioners in the region.
A series of recommendations include that guidance should be directly contextualized to the LAC region with particular attention to the economic, ecosystem, and policy environment and feedback from project stakeholders.
Read the analysis and full range of recommendations in the Valuation Report document.
A recent paper by Agol et al. in Royal Society Open Science explores the role of Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) in reconciling socio-economic development with the conservation and restoration of nature in Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya, East Africa.
Using selected ecosystems in the Lake region, the paper identifies key EbA approaches and explores trade-offs and synergies at spatial and temporal scales and between different stakeholders.
The case study found that EbA approaches such as ecosystem restoration have the potential to generate multiple adaptation benefits as well as synergies and trade-offs occurring at different temporal and spatial scales and affecting various stakeholder groups. EbA trade-offs and risks are not yet sufficiently understood and communicated at different temporal and spatial scales and for different stakeholders in the Lake region.
This highlights the benefits of identifying EbA trade-offs and synergies in order to design better environmental and development programmes.
Read the full case study article.
This landscape-scale programme will restore 1200 acres of land to boost biodiversity, enhance carbon stores, and provide sustainable livelihoods for local people. Sustainable businesses will provide employment and affordable zero-carbon housing will be constructed from local materials; this will contribute to COVID recovery and set an example of how to deliver a rural green new deal. Biodiversity and long-term carbon storage will be enhanced through peatland restoration, grassland grazing by Highland cattle and ponies, and replacing non-native conifer plantations with mixed-species native woodland. The 2021-30 plan is being developed through a 12-month consultation process with local people and national organisations, putting local needs and perspectives first.
For more information, explore the Bunloit website.
A pilot mangrove restoration project in Costa Rica has demonstrated how mangrove planting can benefit habitat and species conservation, whilst also boosting the local economy.
About 40% of Costa Rica’s mangroves were deforested following the collapse of the country’s banana boom in the 1980s. A vigorous fern species has taken over much of the deforested area, preventing the mangroves from re-establishing. A pilot restoration project of 30 ha of mangrove in a protected wetland was implemented, involving clearance of the ubiquitous fern, planting of saplings, and continued fern removal for a few years to prevent it from out-competing the mangrove trees. This pilot successfully enabled the mangroves to re-establish, and was found to be economically viable – a community could receive up to $1500/ha restored, and could restore over 100 ha/year.
Mangrove restoration also benefited a locally-important mollusc species – mud cockles known as piangua. These cockles have served as the main source of income for several Costa Rican communities for decades. However, due to over-harvesting and loss of mangrove habitat, the population and size of individual cockles has been plummeting. Mangrove restoration not only creates more habitat for this species, but it also gives local people an alternative source of income, meaning cockle harvesting effort can be reduced. Together with controls on the number and size of cockles that can be harvested, this is expected to permit the recovery of the cockle population and allow people to benefit from this income source for years to come.
This project has proven to be successful both in terms of conservation and livelihood benefits, and so has great potential for up-scaling across the 2000+ ha of fern-dominated waters in the protected wetland. One barrier that must be overcome, however, is developing a framework for funding restoration on public land, since previous successful payments for ecosystem services schemes in Costa Rica have been restricted to private land. A framework could be developed to fund the restoration through the blue-carbon market (water-based carbon credits). If done successfully, this could provide employment for at least three communities for two to three decades.
Read Andrew Whitworth’s article in Mongabay here.
Flexible management of marine protected areas around the Pacific Island of Vanuatu, has increased food security and income for local people during times of shortage. Vanuatu is highly vulnerable to natural hazards such as cyclones, tsunamis, drought and sea level rise. The country suffered its worst cyclone since records began in 2015, and in response some communities permitted fishing in marine sites under traditional taboos, enabling people to make use of the extra food source during a time of need. The protected areas acted as ‘safety nets’ for coping with a natural hazards: it is thought that by restricting fishing during times of plenty, fish stocks were able to accumulate, meaning that when alternative food sources were more scarce and people needed additional sources of income, there was a greater quantity of fish available for use by vulnerable citizens.
Read the paper here.
Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) in Burkina Faso has improved provision of forest products for local people. ANR, in this case, involves construction of fences around areas of savanna, excluding grazing animals and allowing natural forest to regenerate. ‘Cultivation bands’ for agroforestry are also formed around the periphery of the exclosures, providing an additional source of forest products. Together, the system provides food, fodder for livestock, seeds for making oil, construction wood, medicinal plants and other products. About 70% of the products produced are self-consumed, the remainder being sold for income.
In addition to these livelihood benefits, ANR has improved local biodiversity, with a 5-fold increase in the number of trees and 2-fold increase in the number of tree species, on average, compared to paired areas outside the reserves after 9 years or less of protection.
NewTree, a Swiss NGO, runs this project in collaboration with local families and farmer groups. They have had more demand for initiating ANR sites than they can meet, supporting the proposition that ANR is improving the lives of participants and meeting their needs. The main barrier to the practice being adopted more widely in Burkina Faso, is the financial cost of fencing meaning that projects are reliant on initial investment from a third party.
Read the paper here.
Introduction of market-oriented agroforestry increased income and reduced poverty in Nepalese communities. Food insecurity is a pervasive problem in Nepal; in 2010, 42 of the 75 districts were food deficit. One response to food insecurity has been the introduction of agroforestry, with the aim of increasing income by selling tree products. However, the financial benefits from agroforestry have been limited by a number of factors including poor information on market systems compared to that for staple crops. To improve the situation, market-oriented forestry was introduced in six villages between 2013 and 2016. This involved training farmers to select a range of appropriate product species, deal with crop disease, create nurseries, use biochar organic fertiliser, conduct collective marketing and business management, avoid middle-men in transactions, and form producer organisations and networks with district agencies.
The initiation of market-oriented agroforestry resulted in an increase in household income by 37-48%. This translated to securing food supply for up to six additional months in the poorest households; the proportion of households that had sufficient food increased from 52% before the project to 69% afterwards. It’s estimated that 63% of households that were previously in poverty, were lifted out of the poverty cycle. Five different agroforestry systems were trialed, with the banana-based, high yielding fodder system found to have the greatest financial benefits for farmers in low mountain regions, and alder-cardamom systems performing best in middle mountain regions.
Read the paper here.
