What are nature-based solutions?
Understand what nature-based solutions are and why it is important to apply them
Image: Manguezais Park, in Recife. Environmental preservation area protects biodiversity and improves air quality in the city. CC BY 3.0 br.
The advancement of human society has brought with it a great - and harmful - load of change in the natural environment. If Homo sapiens began to structure its culture in a more elaborate way 70,000 years ago, in the last 60 years we have imposed drastic changes in nature, polluting, deforesting, warming the planet and reducing its atmospheric protections.
THE Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, in the original in English), a research program on environmental change launched by the UN and whose first results were released in 2005, was that it concluded that we humans have changed the natural environment more rapidly in the last 60 years than ever before in the history of the planet - which is already 3.8 billion years old.
It was thinking about how to contain these human interferences with the environment that the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the largest international organization dedicated to the conservation of natural resources, coined the expression "Nature-Based Solutions" (SbN).
The SbN are based on seven principles:
- Deliver an effective solution to a global challenge using nature;
- Provide biodiversity benefits in terms of diversity and well managed ecosystems;
- Present the best cost-effectiveness when compared to other solutions;
- Be communicated in a simple and convincing way;
- Can be measured, verified and replicated;
- Respect and strengthen communities' rights over natural resources;
- Link public and private funding sources.
The idea is to replace polluting or ecologically aggressive human interventions with sustainable practices, inspired by healthy ecosystems and serving to face urgent challenges. A good example is the creation of parks, which brings several health benefits: in addition to the improvement in air quality promoted by afforestation, there is also the possibility of installing sports and leisure equipment, which encourage the practice of physical activities. All of this reduces public health costs and helps reduce global warming and the hole in the ozone layer.
Nature-based solutions go hand in hand with the green economy and the quest to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. They help to deal with urgent problems such as rising sea levels and water scarcity.
The solutions are a way to encourage companies and citizens to think about their environmental impact, what are the costs involved in their profits and what production methods are used by the producers of the items that are consumed. The big challenge is to include these costs in the production account, rather than focusing only on immediate profit.
The video, in Portuguese, explains a little more about nature-based solutions.
