Written by Audrey Wagner
Nature-based solutions (NbS) and ecosystem-based approaches are key to achieving Targets 8 and 11 of the Global Biodiversity Framework, but can only reach their potential if they are designed and implemented with the right guidelines and safeguards.
In 2019, the first guidelines were published after being formally adopted by the Parties to the UN Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD): Voluntary Guidelines for the Design and Effective Implementation of Ecosystem-based Approaches to Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction.
However, the six years since their publication have seen an explosion of interest around NbS, bringing important developments including the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions and its guidance for use in 2020, the four NbS guidelines from the NbSI, a multilaterally agreed-upon UNEA definition of NbS in March 2022, and the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) in December 2022.
To reflect this progress, Parties at CBD COP16 in Cali asked for a supplement to the original voluntary guidelines to provide guidance and tools based on good practices for the design, effective implementation and scaling up of nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based approaches, including updating guidance for fit-for-purpose social and environmental safeguards.
Earlier this month, experts gathered in Cambridge for a three-day workshop hosted by the UN CBD and UNEP-WCMC to work on the development of this supplement, including NbSI’s Audrey Wagner.
Key takeaways on guiding effective and just NbS and ecosystem-based approaches:
1. Building from and integrating with existing guidance
Participants recognised the importance of not ‘reinventing the wheel’, emphasising that the original guidelines remain highly relevant, and that the supplement will serve to integrate and align them with recent policy developments and other key guidelines including:
- Standards and safeguards, particularly: the IUCN Global Standard for NbS, the UNEA definition of NbS, World Bank safeguards, the Cancun REDD+ safeguards, the Principles for Locally Led Adaptation (LLA), the SAGE methodology, the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction;
- Policy and law: the Global Biodiversity Framework – in particular Section C which highlights a human rights-based approach and Mother Earth centric actions, and Targets 22 and 23 on equitable and inclusive participation and gender, recent developments on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the ESCAZU agreement;
- The latest science: recommendations from recent IPBES reports on diverse values, nexus integration and transformative change, academic work in the social sciences on best practices for effective and equitable participatory governance and engagement (for example, see Hafferty et al., 2024).
2. Recognising local context and the rights of IPLCs
Conversations highlighted the importance of properly understanding the local context prior to any intervention, building on existing governance structures, and embedding meaningful participation and/or leadership by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. As a minimum, this includes Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-determination, and a reminder of states’ legal obligation to practice free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). Safeguards should prevent existing inequalities being exacerbated and ensure access to justice and remedy in case harm does occur.
3. Promoting synergies and overcoming siloed thinking
Seeking to fill the gap in the current guidance, which focuses on climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction, the new supplement will, in part, focus on NbS and ecosystem-based approaches for climate mitigation. Audrey Wagner stressed that best-practice NbS projects, including those designed to bring mitigation benefits, should bring multiple local benefits where the intervention is based, which may encompass climate adaptation, food security, livelihood support and more.
In the workshop, Wagner called for better integration between guidance for mitigation and adaptation interventions to promote NbS and ecosystem-based approaches with holistic benefits. She warned that providing distinct guidance for ‘mitigation projects’ could further entrench the siloes between the mitigation and adaptation communities and exacerbate the carbon ‘tunnel-vision’, which has resulted in some mitigation-focused projects sidelining local priorities and biodiversity for the sake of carbon gains.
The need for policy coherence, integration and synergies has been gaining recognition recently (e.g. the IPBES Nexus Assessment and CBD decision 16/22 on biodiversity and climate synergies). It is thus imperative that all new guidance going forwards reflect this and strives to move beyond siloed thinking, whether between climate and biodiversity or mitigation and adaptation. Breaking these siloes in funding and financing mechanisms is particularly key, as intervention objectives and framings are often driven and determined by finance priorities geared towards narrow outcomes instead of multiple benefits and the needs of local people.
4. Embedding ecological integrity
The latest understanding of the importance of ecological integrity for providing multiple benefits and Nature’s Contributions to People should be reflected in the supplementary guidelines and in policy. All NbS interventions must, by definition, support and enhance biodiversity and therefore stronger biodiversity safeguards and guidelines for protecting and restoring ecological integrity are important for ensuring this and holding actors to account.
5. Ensuring robust implementation
Participants acknowledged that while many good safeguards exist, they are frequently not fully applied and implemented, often in the name of urgency. The dissemination, communication and uptake of the original and supplementary guidelines will be crucial for them to have impact. The guidelines, principles and safeguards in the new supplement must be well designed, but the implementation, monitoring and adaptive learning from them are equally vital steps.
Read more about the imperative of aligning policy on climate and biodiversity (The Conversation article by Nathalie Seddon and Audrey Wagner).