10. SUCCESS STORIES – BUT NOT WITHOUT BARRIERS

This project focuses on examples with successful outcomes in case studies practising or enabling nature-based solutions. The purpose is to garner inspirations by illustrating how it is possible to achieve policy synergies across different agendas. However, each case is context dependent. Success is not automatically guaranteed but depends on multiple conditions. To achieve successful synergies when implementing policy measures, it is important to be aware of potential blind spots, trade-offs, and spill over effects. It is not guaranteed that the respective agendas on biodiversity, climate change and pollution prevention will coincide and be mutually beneficial and synergistic; sometimes the separate objectives will be in conflict. Biodiversity and ecosystem services are impacted both by the consequences of climate change and our responses to the crisis through implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures. For instance, afforestation to sequester carbon might not benefit local biodiversity, if the forest is monocultural or the forest replaces a native and natural ecosystem.

Seddon et al. (2021)

However, actions to halt the loss of biodiversity generally benefit the climate agenda and provide more resilient ecosystems to better withstand climate change.

Shin et al. (2022)

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IPCC (2022)

An important step from policy development to realised effect is the implementation of the selected solutions. When working with NbS, access to land use and initiation of land use change will very often be a key parameter. Common barriers in such processes are access to financing as well as opposition from landowners against setting aside areas; especially when there is a need to take land out of production. Access to financial compensation as well as thorough stakeholder involvement in such circumstances is key.

Bridging the gap between different administrative levels and between different policy sectors is important, but it can be challenging. There is a need for mainstreaming NbS objectives across different sectors that often differ in point of views. Cross-sectoral legislation and mechanisms at both national and municipal levels might enable this. Better knowledge bases on NbS are needed, and studies show that it is especially important to improve the evidence base for the benefits of NbS to motivate local authorities to consider NbS solutions. A wider adoption of the NbS is needed to ensure its success, and furthermore there is a need for more large-scale examples. Many experiences with NbS are currently locally embedded, and often down to an object scale, e.g., green roofs. There is a need for combining this object scale with a larger strategy with a whole system perspective to ensure the expected impacts.

Calliari et al. (2022)

Such initiatives are luckily well underway. Examples are the University of Oxford NbS initiative, and the IUCN Global Standard for NbS to ensure a uniform understanding. It should be noted that this definition differs slightly from the one applied by the EU. Furthermore, NbS themselves can be climate sensitive and this can hamper the anticipated results. The multiple stressors from the crises we are facing impact ecosystem resilience in multiple ways. Furthermore, many of the benefits of NbS are non-monetary and can be hard to measure especially on a short timeframe.

Price (2021)et al. (2022)

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Seddon et al. (2020)

Nature-based solutions are praised for their ability to handle multiple crises. However, there are risks of blind spots. In recent years, a large part of climate mitigation has focused on carbon sequestration by afforestation and wetland creation or restoration, as also seen in the selected cases for this project. The possibility to create synergies to achieve greater biodiversity is highly dependent on the approach. For example, if plantations of monocultures with non-native species are used in afforestation projects, then the benefits for local biodiversity will be limited or even harmful. This again highlights the importance of engaging people with different fields of expertise and breaking down silos, to ensure that success­fully achieving one goal does not undermine the achievement of other goals.

Seddon et al. (2020)

Some also question the cost effectiveness of NBS compared with engineered grey alternatives, and again further research is needed to determine the validity of this concern. There are also ongoing experiments with different combinations of grey and green infrastructure creating hybrid solutions.

Anderson et al. (2022)

The IUCN identified one of the biggest barriers for implementing NbS to be the challenge of estimating impacts, benefits and cost-effectiveness in quantitative terms. These uncertainties might make people hesitant to implement NbS.

Network for Nature (2022)

Lastly, even though NbS are heavily promoted as a key measure in tackling both the nature and climate crises, the support is not unanimous, and the concept has been rejected by several NGOs, IPOs and grassroot movements who consider it a dangerous distraction from the urgent need to drastically cut our GHG emissions and minimize our resource exploitation to handle the crises.

Seddon et al. (2021)

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Melanidis & Hagerman (2022)

 

A tree is not just a tree; which type of tree is planted when greening urban areas is important for its ability to reduce air pollution and improve air quality. A tree’s capacity to reduce air pollution varies between species, and some trees even emit volatile compounds contributing to poor air quality.

European Commission (2015)

Furthermore, the plantation practice can also impact the ecosystem carbon stock and the forest’s ability to sequester carbon. Trials of different management practices like the management practice of continuous forest cover explained in the Swedish case are therefore important.

Liao (2010)

The ecosystem complexity is also the reason why it can be difficult to achieve the desired effects in afforestation projects such as the ones from Iceland. These are further complicated by the fact that the only native woodland tree species are threatened by climate change and might not thrive in a warmer Iceland.

These examples illustrate the level of complexity faced when working with natural systems. Ecological restoration is also often practised in an interplay between different sectors and different political interests both when it comes to specific projects and entire programmes. The political landscape concerning environmental policies is complex with hundreds of different multilateral agreements,

Visseren-Hamakers (2015

this can make it difficult to navigate and obtain the right synergies by aligning agendas in the environmental field. Policy frameworks are ever changing, and priorities sometimes shift when the local or national governments change, potentially disrupting ongoing projects and practices.

Baker & Eckerberg (2013)

The ever-changing nature of natural landscapes only complicates it further. Moreover, ecosystem changes are sometimes irreversible, and a result of an underlying change in the biotic and/or abiotic factors

A Swedish study from 2016 mapped the public funding of ecological restoration across Sweden to clarify what governs the allocation of public funds.

Borgström et al. (2016)

Ecological restoration efforts were highly dependent on regional administrative capacity rather than the environmental need or population size. Furthermore, in several cases recreational and economic motives rather than environmental concerns seemed to be the main reason since some nature types generally were favoured above others. Ecological restoration was not a long-term investment, most efforts were done on a small scale and with a short-term perspective. The aforementioned paper concludes that since this was the situation in Sweden, a country often appraised for being in the lead when it comes to the environment, the situation in other countries is expected to be the same or even more pronounced.

Other studies also identify the general tendency of under-funding environmental governance as a key barrier to the wider implementation of NbS.

Shih et al. (2019)

For projects such as the municipal flower meadows in the Norwegian municipality to be continuously successful also after implementation, long-term funding is needed to ensure continuous upkeep and management of the semi-natural landscape.