Pinned Stories

Description coming soon — The framework was conceptualised with smallholder Kichwa agroforestry farmers in Napo, Ecuador. Photo credit: Óscar Luna

A pathway towards equitable co-design with smallholder farmers

New research by the Flourishing Landscapes Programme offers a pathway towards more equitable collaboration between researchers, practitioners and smallholder farmers. The study presents a practical framework for embedding equity within co-design, moving from top-down knowledge transfer to knowledge co-production.

18 August 2026

Groundswell Festival: Sharing Oxford’s Agricultural Research

At Groundswell Regenerative Agriculture Festival, the AGRIIH marquee was a hub for all things agriculture resilience. Researchers from across the University of Oxford showcased agricultural research across disciplines, from soil biodiversity to agricultural policy and beyond.

08 July 2026

Fishbone Deforestation Rondônia, Brazil August 5, 2016 — Fires burning to clear forest for farming and grazing in the Amazon rainforest, Rondônia, Brazil. Credit: Planet Labs, Inc., licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How can action on deforestation strengthen UK food resilience?

Introducing a new research project exploring the link between deforestation and UK food resilience. The UK government’s recent national security assessment highlights the risks of accelerating global ecosystem degradation for UK food security. In collaboration with DEFRA, the project brings together an interdisciplinary team to identify evidence-based policy solutions, funded by the Agile Initiative.

04 June 2026

Pathways to strengthen biodiversity protection in oil palm landscapes

A new study published today in Ecological Solutions and Evidence examines the challenges and solutions for protecting biodiversity within oil palm landscapes. Palm oil is a major global commodity, yet its production can come at significant environmental and social costs. Drawing on practitioner interviews, the study proposes recommendations to strengthen biodiversity protection and social safeguards in oil palm landscapes.

04 February 2026

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Marshall Islands, Suriname, Norway update NDCs before informal 9 Feb Deadline

Only three of the 197 Paris Agreement signatories have submitted updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in time for the informal 9th February deadline. The Marshall Islands accounts for just 0.00001% of global emissions, and so focus on making Pacific Islands more resilient to climate change-induced storms and sea level rise rather than on mitigation. The […]

11 February 2020

Quantifying cultural ecosystem services: Disentangling the effects of management from landscape features

Tew et al. 2019 Cultural ecosystem services are recognised as important, but are notoriously difficult to define, measure and assign value to. This study of Thetford forest in the east UK uncovered the relationship between cultural values and land management practices, whilst controlling for the influence of landscape features, such as rivers and roads. The […]

11 February 2020

Ecosystem-based Adaptation: A review of the constraints

Nalau et al. 2018 Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) is the preferred approach for adapting to climate change in the least developed and developing countries, in part because it has the capacity to address adaptation of both ecosystems and livelihoods simultaneously. This review paper looks at existing literature on the constraints on EbA use, categorised into: economic […]

11 February 2020

Recent divergence in the contributions of tropical and boreal forests to the terrestrial carbon sink

Tagesson et al. 2020 This paper used satellite data on land cover and a dynamic global vegetation model to estimate the impact of human land use and land cover changes (LULCC) on the contribution of different habitat types to the terrestrial carbon sink between 1992 and 2015. The authors found that tropical and boreal forests […]

11 February 2020

Governance principles for community-centered conservation in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework

Armitage et al. 2019 Conservation Science and Practice It is well established that Nature-based Solutions are often more effective if they are designed and implemented in a way that aligns with the perspectives and needs of local stakeholders. Community-centred conservation follows the same principle and some of the research in this area can be applied […]

11 February 2020

National mitigation potential from natural climate solutions in the tropics

Griscom et al. 2020 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B This paper looks at the potential for natural climate solutions (NCS; a type of nature-based solution) for mitigating climate change in 79 tropical countries. 12 different NCS pathways were defined, split broadly into protection, management and restoration across multiple habitat types (savannahs, farmland, wetland […]

11 February 2020

Nature-based approaches to managing climate change impacts in cities

Hobbie and Grimm 2020 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B This paper reviews current evidence for how Nature-based Solutions can be used to reduce the vulnerability of cities to climate change. The authors give an overview of how certain features of cities amplify climatic hazards, such as the concentration of settlements around rivers and […]

11 February 2020

Greater stability of carbon capture in species-rich natural forests compared to species-poor plantations

Osuri et al. 2019 This study looked at the difference in C storage and rate of C sequestration between longer-lived plantations and natural forests, using 2000-2018 data on Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) from a natural experiment in the Western Ghats of India. C stocks in monodominant teak and Eucalyptus plantations were 30-50% lower than in […]

11 February 2020

Companies warm to Nature-based Solutions. Greenwashing?

Greenbiz magazine describes Nature-based Solutions as leveraging ‘nature’s inherent genius’. Nature loss puts companies’ supply chains, reputation and financial security at risk, and companies are starting to realise this, encouraged by the World Economic Forum and Business for Nature. According to Greenbiz, so far over 350 companies have made commitments to help reverse nature loss […]

11 February 2020

Restoring Sri Lanka’s mangroves

In 2015, Sri Lanka declared that they would protect all their mangrove forests, in order to restore the precious ecosystem services that they provide: carbon sequestration, coastal protection, fisheries support and more. Partnering with two non-profit organisations (Sudeesa and Seacology), the Sri Lankan government has started a programme to protect and replant 35,000 hectares of […]

11 February 2020

NbSI in the German Bundestag

We were invited by Green MP Steffi Lemke to share our understanding about Nature-based Solutions with a wide-ranging group of politicians, practitioners and scientists in the German Bundestag. This was part of a hearing on the importance of (and limits to) working with nature as a climate solution. There was much discussion about the vital […]

10 February 2020

NbSI director interviewed by Bloomberg

‘I haven’t met any anti-tree people yet’ says Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce. This is perhaps because whilst tree planting can be a great thing (indeed, an effective Nature-based Solution with manifold benefits), it can also be harnessed by governments and incorporations as a ‘get out of jail card’ by making it appear like they […]

03 February 2020

Radio 5 live: Pros and cons of tree-planting

On late-night radio, Nat Seddon discusses the importance of planting trees carefully and for the right reasons, and of ensuring other vital ecosystems, such as grasslands and peatlands in the UK, are not damaged in the process. Right trees in the right places (42 mins in)!

29 January 2020

Knowledge Mile Park in The Netherlands

A mile-long park is being constructed along a highly polluted street in Amsterdam, incorporating multiple nature-based solutions. The project was launched in 2015 by the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, and is being created through collaboration of 100 companies, 30 thousand residents and 60 thousand students. The Knowledge Mile will include two parks, 1600 square […]

29 January 2020

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