Abundant Future
Nature-based Solutions Are Hot and Happening
Nature-based Solutions are hot in reports of the World Bank, the United Nations, and the European Commission. What are they?
Many environmentalists are getting desperate. How to solve pollution, climate change, deforestation, and all the other problems that our industrial ways are creating?
Conservation is happening but destroyed again as soon as people in the surrounding communities are getting hungry. Not able to fulfill their basic needs.
Many economists are holding ground, saying the market will balance it all in the end. But secretly asking themselves how to make the economy and the businesses more resilient? How to tackle the huge gap between riches and poverty? How to feed a fast-growing world population?
It seems like the environmentalists and economists are on separate sides. But are they? Can we find solutions that will solve problems on both sides? Can we align the economy and ecology?
Yes, we can.
In this story, I’ll explore solutions that create multiple benefits on both sides. Nature-based solutions combine human well-being with biodiversity benefits.
These solutions are the bridge between human systems and natural ecosystems. Merging them. Making sure we can live in a world where all is connected. All is one.
Nature-based Solutions
Recently, nature-based solutions are embraced by many big institutions. Apparently people start to see that we need nature to help us find solutions for our biggest world problems. Ecological problems as well as economic problems. There’s no getting around it anymore…
The World Bank calls Nature-based Solutions in their April 2019 report “a Cost-effective Approach for Disaster Risk and Water Resource Management.”
The European Commission says that Nature-based Solutions “are designed to bring more nature and natural features and processes to cities, landscapes, and seascapes. These innovative solutions also support economic growth, create jobs, and enhance our well-being.”
The United Nations Development Program published in October 2019 their view on Nature-based Solutions: “It provides a framework for governments to identify potential NBS with the aim of enhancing their climate mitigation and adaptation action in a cost-effective manner and with multiple co-benefits.”
In August 2019 the UN Climate Action Summit published its manifesto on Nature-based Solutions.
And in 2020 the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) produced a report with Bankable Nature Solutions. Exploring financing models and giving a lot of examples.
Wow!
The light is turned on in many rooms now.
But what are nature-based solutions?
I think the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) describes them best when they say:
“Nature-based solutions are defined as actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits” — IUCN
Blue Economy
Okay, so nature-based solutions are hot. And the theory has a basis. A description. But what does it mean in practice?
Several think-tanks, do-tanks, and private companies have implemented nature-based solutions in the past say 20–30 years. They’ve operated rather under the radar, but have also achieved incredible results. I mention them often in my stories.
Ecosystems are being restored. And communities are using the abundance of nature to fulfill their basic needs with locally grown materials or waste streams from other production processes.
Think-tank ZERI with the Blue Economy has described many nature-based cluster-economic activities in their cluster-cases.
In this story about the Spanish island El Hierro, I describe how a whole island community of 11,000 people changed their economic model with Blue Economy thinking. Providing for their basic needs with nature-based solutions.
Energy, food, land restoration, ocean restoration. It’s all tackled by the heroes on this island. And all in a hostile paradigm of money-driven economies that do not recognize other values, such as clean air, clean water, and healthy soil.
They have embraced the theory already in the 20th century and took action! Here you can view Javier Morales, one of the men behind this great endeavor.
Biomimicry
Nature has been innovating for 4.6 billion years. And my goodness, what smart solutions nature finds time and time again!
So why do it the human way?
We still need lots and lots of energy to produce what we call innovative products. We produce materials that become waste after use. We never think about the whole system of products. We have a severe case of tunnel vision.
Why not do it nature’s way?
Innovation is an important aspect of nature-based solutions. Environmental organizations are finding solutions together with engineers to create e.g. solutions for climate adaptation. The work of Ecoshape, Building with Nature, in Indonesia is a good example of this kind of nature-based innovation.
And the biomimicry philosophy finds many new innovations to be used in nature-based projects as well. Biomimicry, biomimetics, or bionics is what the word says: mimic nature and learn from her as humans to find the solutions for human progress without harming nature. Or even better, by giving back to nature and help her thrive as well.
The Biomimicry Institute publishes many nature-based solutions in the fields of designs, material use, and nature-inspired technology.
On the website Asknature.org (link below) you can check if nature has already come up with a solution for certain problems we have.
And inspired by nature’s answer, we can innovate and create products that are real solutions. Products that do not produce waste because they are fully biodegradable in soil, freshwater, and saltwater. Products produced in non-toxic ways.
What if the fashion industry, the second most polluting industry, would create colors the way a butterfly does?
Reflecting light? Instead of using toxic inks?
The world would certainly be a better, more colorful, and vibrant place! Let’s all shine like butterflies…
Large Scale Ecosystem Restoration
Nature-based solutions will always involve ecosystem restoration. The ecosystem services need to be integrated into everything we produce for humans.
In conventional solutions, we think that we need to control nature to produce our human products. That’s not true.
New thinking tells us that we can unleash the abundance of nature to give all species on this planet more operating space.
Ecosystem restoration is happening for real right now.
The earlier mentioned project by Ecoshape in Indonesia is already an example of how to restore mangrove forests and create aquaculture to enhance climate adaptation and produce food for the community.
On a tiny scale, tiny forests are popping up everywhere. It’s a great concept developed by Shubhendu Sharma, and talked about in the TED community.
On a larger scale, many permaculture projects are restoring land and oceans. Here is a video example of how they’re greening the desert in the Middle East. And here a video can be found of how they restored an area in China. It’s as large as my whole country, the Netherlands.
And they just did it! Wow!
Of course, in these examples, it’s important to combine the benefits for nature with benefits for humans. That’s why the Blue Economy business models always work with multiple benefits.
The communities living in these areas are using agroecology methods for their farming. Making sure they get a good yield and preserve nature for the long term, so the yields will keep coming.
It’s a win-win-win.
Minimalism? Abundanism!
Of course, in order for nature-based solutions to give us long-term resilience on our planet, we need to be more humble as humans.
Why do we want big houses to store stuff we don’t need? This stuff has to be produced. And the big houses, warehouses, and megalomaniac company buildings still take up space on our planet. Destroying biodiversity with concrete and asphalt.
Instead of maximizing resources for our human gain, we can optimize resources to serve all species. We can produce our basic needs products with local, abundantly available resources.
And we can live a purposeful life with little stuff.
This lifestyle is regularly called minimalism. I call it abundanism.
“Minimalism is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom.”
— The Minimalists, Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus.
I can tell you from experience that it’s a very abundant lifestyle. And yes, it gives me freedom. On the path of nature-based solutions, I meet the most amazing people. Share love and support. Experience many adventures.
We create an abundant here-and-now and an abundant future together.
It’s a mindset change. But very much worth it, once you see the benefits.
Well, it seems that after a long time under the radar, nature-based solutions are out in the open now.
Architects, designers, farmers, entrepreneurs, engineers, educators, and consumers, please take note. We’re speeding up. And we need you on board to bring this further.
I’ll keep writing about the good examples. And making it happen in the many companies that stick their heads above the parapet now by doing it.
What will you be doing? I’d love to read your thoughts about nature-based solutions in the comments!
Thank you, Mike, for adding your wise energy to my words.
If you want to connect, you can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter. Or on my website. Or somewhere finding fungi and learning about mycelium networks, about material structures, about life…
