Nature-based Solutions
Imagine a world without concrete barriers at sea, man-made drainage systems, roadsides held together by metal nets and rolling hills of monoculture plantations. Imagine nature thriving, biodiverse woodlands, meandering rivers, prospering sea life and improved well-being for everyone. This is what Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can provide.
These solutions are natural, long term alternatives to man-made structures that tackle socio-environmental challenges. Due to loss of woodland, destruction of seagrass meadows, drainage of wetlands and many more devastating human impacts, the consequences of landslides, floods, storm surges and the like are worsening. This is not to say that man-made interventions aren’t working, but these tend to have a big price tag and usually end up being short-term solutions that don’t add any benefit to wider challenges that we are facing, such as the climate crisis.
By working with nature to address these issues, we can restore habitat, address societal challenges, provide benefits for biodiversity, fight the climate crisis and improve human well-being all at the same time. The actions towards these goals involve the protection, restoration or management of natural and semi-natural ecosystems.
Some examples of NbS include:
- Conserving and restoring diverse forests to protect communities from floods and soil erosion.
- Creating green roofs and planting trees in towns and cities to help abate pollution and reduce the impact of heatwaves. Not to mention the health benefits for the people that live there.
- Protecting and restoring wetlands such as peatland in catchment areas to secure and regulate water supplies, whilst increasing the habitats ability to capture and store carbon.
- Improving coastal mangroves, reefs and saltmarshes to protect seaside communities from storm surges and erosion, whilst helping our fight against climate change.
It’s important to mention that a key part of these solutions includes holding the local communities and indigenous peoples at the heart of each project, to generate local benefits in unison with these people, ensuring they can develop and lead on the solutions.
For maximum impact, NbS need to be developed and implemented at a landscape scale, supporting biodiversity from single cell organisms to entire ecosystems. In the UK, some of the best options for climate change adaptation and the consequent benefits include the protection, restoration, creation or sustainable management of; Natural or semi-natural woodlands, Wetlands, sustainable agriculture, wood pasture, agroforestry and urban green infrastructure1. There are many other solutions for coastal areas that include saltmarshes, seagrass, dunes, sea cliffs and mangroves.
Taking this holistic approach onboard, Bunloit will begin the baseline biodiversity and carbon surveys this summer. These solutions must be grounded in science which is why we will create a database of these results so that ongoing research can document changes on the estate over the next ten years, as we implement our Nature-based Solutions. This research will help to develop new technologies, lead the way in nature-friendly land management and create new jobs for local people, working with the community to benefit all.
Some of the ways which we plan to do this include:
- creating a woodland management plan that involves the creation of new habitat and conservation of existing mixed broadleaf woodland.
- Managing our pastures by bringing in proxies of species that used to live in these habitats – highland cattle, ponies, wild boar – and creating the best grazing pressure to boost grassland and insect biodiversity, which in turn benefit all other elements of the pastural ecosystem.
- Blocking drainage channels on our boglands and removing monoculture plantations to allow the land to restore, in turn capturing and storing increasing amounts of carbon.
- Developing net-zero carbon homes with MAKAR for the local community, placing them within woodland cover and providing land that can be used for small-scale agriculture.
We will be documenting the ongoing research and keeping everyone up to date via our website and newsletter, which you can sign up for below.
For more information on Nature Based Solutions, please visit https://www.naturebasedsolutionsinitiative.org
It’s important to note that these solutions do not negate the role of fossil fuels and the importance of phasing these out. NbS make a difference but do not change the need for a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions which will only continue to increase global warming and negatively impact the ecosystems we rely on.
Tierney Lloyd
References:
1. Chausson A, Smith A, Seddon N, Coath M and Matheson S (2020) The role of Nature-based Solutions for Climate Change Adaptation in UK Policy. NbSI, University of Oxford, WWF-UK and RSPB.