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New £10m Agile Initiative announced, led by NbSI Director
A new Oxford University research programme, The Agile Initiative, has been established to provide rapid solutions to critical environmental issues. Based at the Oxford Martin School with £10 million of funding from the Natural Environment Research Council and led by NbSI Director Professor Nathalie Seddon, it will deliver high-impact interdisciplinary research and contribute urgently-needed answers […] -
Protect, manage and then restore lands for climate mitigation
Cook-Patton et al 2021. A recent study in Nature Climate Change, led by scientists from The Nature Conservancy, outlines a hierarchy for decision-making regarding protecting, managing, and restoring natural systems for climate mitigation. A series of approaches to maximising the use of Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) to tackle climate change were compared against four key […] -
Wageningen University & Research nature-based solutions challenge
Wageningen University & Research (WUR), is running a worldwide student Nature Based Solutions Challenge, where entrants come up with a nature-based solution proposal to face a panel of experts. The jury will select the teams that receive funding of 2500 euro as well as mentoring to support implementation of the winning project. The teams of […] -
Peatland restoration to protect water supplies in the Garron Plateau
Activities to restore the Garron Plateau in Country Antrim, containing the largest area of peat bog in Northern Ireland began in 2010 after 95% of the bog had been degraded. The peatland area of the Garron Plateau feeds into the Dungonnell Reservoir, which supplies water to 12,000 people and is a globally important Ramsar wetland […] -
NbSI joins new expert panel on Future of ecological research in the UK
The British Ecological Society (BES) have launched a new project to set out the priorities for the future of ecological research in the UK. The project will identify the grand challenges for ecology, built on ideas and insight from across the diverse ecological community. The project’s aim is to develop a unified community vision of the […] -
Nature-based solutions: rhetoric or reality? House of Commons report
A new House of Commons Science and Technology Committee publication – Nature-based solutions: rhetoric or reality? outlines the potential contribution of nature-based solutions to net zero in the UK. The report is based on written and spoken evidence from NbSI and focuses on the role of nature-based solutions in reducing carbon emissions and sequestering carbon, […] -
New £10 million Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery in Oxford
The Leverhulme Trust has awarded £10 million to a new Oxford nature recovery centre – one of three UK centres established with a hotly-contested Leverhulme Trust 2021 award. The centre, led by Professor Yadvinder Malhi of the School of Geography and the Environment and co-directors including NbSI’s own Professor Nathalie Seddon, will also receive £5 million in […] -
Guidelines for successful, sustainable Nature-based Solutions
Back in 1992, at the United Nations Earth Summit, the three Rio Conventions were established (one on climate change, one on biodiversity, and one on desertification), but while their interdependencies were acknowledged at the time, the policy, practice, and research communities that grew around each convention largely followed independent trajectories. Until now. -
Can sustainability certification deliver climate resilience for smallholder farmers? The case of Ghanaian cocoa
Sustainability certification has been posited as a key governance mechanism to enhance the climate resilience of smallholder farmers. Whilst many certifications now include climate resilience in their standards, their ability to deliver this for smallholders remains untested. We take the case of the 2015–16 drought-shock to cocoa production in Ghana to examine whether certification can enhance smallholder climate resilience. -
Nature-dependent people: Mapping human direct use of nature for basic needs across the tropics
Fedele et al. 2021 A recent study in Global Environmental Change led by Conservation International Europe investigated where people depend the most on locally available natural resources for their basic human needs, such as energy, water, housing and livelihoods. The study aimed to improve the current limited understanding of the importance of nature in directly […] -
COP26 Week Two Round Up: negotiations and decisions made on nature and climate
Week two of COP26 saw a shift from the headline sectorial announcements and pledges of week one, and a move to work on implementation and intense negotiations between ministers, heads of delegations, and supporting ‘issue leads’. Under the Paris Climate Agreement every five years countries must strengthen their climate commitments, giving this year’s COP its […] -
What Can Nature offer COP26, and vice versa?
‘Nature is our life support system’ says Professor Nathalie Seddon in a new video from the University of Oxford, ‘and to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, it is critical that we work with nature’. Professor Seddon is one of around 30 official ‘friends’ of COP26, is a member of the UK delegation at […] -
COP26 Week One Round Up: major announcements on nature and climate
The first week of COP26 saw a blizzard of announcements, with a particular focus on forests and agriculture. The World Leaders Summit at the start of the week saw the announcement of the Glasgow Leaders Forest Declaration – 133 countries (and counting) have committed to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030, with […] -
New Global Map of best-practice Nature-based Solutions launches at COP26
Our new interactive global map of best practice examples of nature-based solutions across the world, funded by the British Academy, launched at the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow on November 8. The interactive map links nature-based solutions to climate change adaptation and mitigation outcomes based on a systematic review of the peer-reviewed and grey literature. […] -
Nature-based Solutions in Bangladesh: Evidence of Effectiveness for Addressing Climate Change and Other Sustainable Development Goals
Many lower-income countries are highly vulnerable to the impacts of natural disasters and climate change, due to their geographical location and high levels of poverty. In response, they are developing climate action plans that also support their sustainable development goals, but conventional adaptation approaches such as hard flood defenses can be expensive and unsustainable. -
Ensuring nature-based solutions support both biodiversity and climate change adaptation
New research examines whether nature-based solutions can deliver a win-win for biodiversity and climate change adaptation. Our recent study reviewed the effects of nature-based interventions for climate change adaptation on different metrics of ecosystem health (such as the diversity of species, their population sizes, or soil and water quality). Most interventions with positive outcomes for […] -
Nature-based solutions can reduce vulnerability to climate change
Our recent research examines the role of nature-based solutions (NbS) in addressing climate vulnerability in Bangladesh and rural Global South in general, and on ensuring NbS support both biodiversity and climate change adaptation. We have summarised the key findings from these studies for policymakers in three briefings. Bangladesh This briefing ‘Tackling climate change with nature-based […] -
NbSI Documentary series on Nature-based Solutions in Action in the UK
Research shows that further climate warming and biodiversity loss are now unavoidable but that we still have time to make a lasting difference: i.e. to keep warming below dangerous levels, stop further depletion of the diversity of life on Earth and make the world a better and just place for all. In 2021 the international […] -
Nature-based Solutions at COP26
The formal opening of the COP26 Climate Change conference took place on 31 Oct 2021. COP is the decision-making body responsible for monitoring and reviewing the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It brings together the 197 nations and territories – called Parties – that have signed on to the […] -
Tackling vulnerability to climate change in Bangladesh and the rural Global South with nature-based solutions
Today at COP26 we launch two briefings, based on new studies, on the role of nature-based solutions (NbS) in addressing climate vulnerability in Bangladesh and rural Global South in general. Bangladesh This briefing ‘Tackling climate change with nature-based solutions in Bangladesh’ summarises a review by Smith et al. (in press) that found robust evidence that […] -
COP26 highlight: Global Leaders pledge to end deforestation by 2030
November 2nd is a big day for nature & forests at COP26. Over 100 world leaders are to commit to halt and reverse deforestation & land degradation by 2030, with the backing of major forest countries including Brazil, Indonesia and Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is to be enabled due to a pledge from […] -
New AI NbS Policy Tracker launched by Nature4Climate
A new Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) Policy Tracker has been launched at COP26 by Nature4Climate and Metabolic. The developed tracker is the first to use AI and machine learning to identify legislation and investment plans for NbS to assess their effectiveness. Investment into NbS needs to triple by 2030 and increase fourfold by 2050 for the […] -
Make Change Happen podcast: NbSI joins discussion on including nature in NDCs
In a recent episode of the IIED Make Change Happen podcast, NbSI’s Nathalie Seddon and others explored why it is important to include nature in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and how to increase ambition and actions for nature and climate to address the crises of climate change, nature loss and rising inequalities. Countries that signed […] -
Highlighting best-practice for integration of NbS into revised NDCs
The NbSI team are in the process of updating our Nature-based Solutions (NbS) Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) Policy Platform. The platform makes information about climate change adaptation planning across the globe openly available, easy and interesting to explore. Pledges are linked to the underlying evidence, and will highlight the prominence of integration of NbS in […] -
New Global Map of best-practice Nature-based Solutions to launch at COP26
A new interactive global map of best practice examples of nature-based solutions across the world, funded by the British Academy, will be launched on 8th November at the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow. The interactive map links nature-based solutions to climate change adaptation and mitigation outcomes based on a systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature. […]