Nature-based Solutions News

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural and modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing “human well-being and biodiversity benefits,” according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In an essay, University of Oxford’s Nature-based Solutions Initiative Director Nathalie Seddon underscored that to “qualify as an NbS, an action must sustainably provide one or more benefits for people while causing no loss of biodiversity or ecological integrity compared to the pre-intervention state.” To be sustainable and equitable, NbS must also be designed, implemented, managed and monitored by or in partnership with indigenous peoples and local communities through a process that fully respects and champions local rights and knowledge, and generates local benefits, the essay adds. NbS is an ‘umbrella concept’ for other established ‘nature-based’ approaches such as ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) and ecosystem based mitigation, eco-disaster risk reduction and green infrastructure. More recently, the term ‘natural climate solutions (NCS)’ entered the lexicon. NCS also falls under the umbrella of NbS, but refers explicitly to conservation and management actions that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ecosystems and harness their potential to store carbon. This series attempts to highlight the Nature-based Solutions from around India while ensuring credibility, impacts as well as pitfalls and limitations of such solutions.

Researchers propose algae-based solution for wastewater treatment

Growing food and greening cities

With local support, a tributary comes to life 

Rooted in tradition, nature-based architecture bridges generations

Human equations with their local invasives could be the key to better management

[Explainer] What is teal carbon?

Weeds of change

[Commentary] From fallow to forest: Letting nature regenerate

Can organic farmers’ markets encourage chemical-free farming?

[Video] Flowers of worship sow seeds of sustainability

Farmers pin hopes on new agricultural calendar to weather climate variabilities

Closing Bengaluru parks in the afternoons deprives outdoor workers of refuge from heat

[Commentary] The silent crisis of mountain springs and its implications

Study finds potential to restore native shola trees under the shade of the exotic Acacia

Crafting a sustainable future for artisans using bamboo

Idu Mishmi protect ancestral land through community conservation

More wild water buffaloes in central India to fix population decline and ecological degradation

[Commentary] Rising tides, rooted solutions

India adds five more wetlands to its list of Ramsar sites

[Interview] Climate change talks do not take nature into consideration in its economics: Partha Dasgupta

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