Approach to Worldwide Challenges

The world is facing unprecedented challenges in addressing issues such as climate change, biodiversity conservation, pollution management, and supporting family and community development. To comprehensively address these multiple risks, nature-based solutions (NbS) have gradually become an important approach. Science has confirmed the interconnectedness of different ecosystems, and the international community has called for ambitious, inclusive, and holistic actions, such as the Sustainable Development Goals. Within these actions, protecting nature is a necessary measure to achieve carbon neutrality, manage water resources and other pollutants, enhance climate resilience, and support community and human development goals.

As one of the leading global conservation organizations, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has been at the forefront of NbS for many years. Collaborating with scientists, community members, businesses, and governments, TNC is dedicated to co-designing and implementing innovative solutions to address issues such as biodiversity loss, freshwater management, air and water pollution, and climate change. These solutions embrace the concept of working with nature to generate significant benefits.

NbS represents a profound shift in thinking within the field of nature conservation, reexamining the relationship between humans and nature from resource utilization to functional considerations. It emphasizes the utilization of important ecosystem services provided by natural ecosystems, such as water retention, soil health improvement, air purification, biodiversity protection, and carbon sequestration, to address the severe threats and challenges of climate change, frequent disasters, and biodiversity loss. At the same time, NbS can bring various economic, environmental, and social benefits, such as reducing infrastructure costs, creating employment opportunities, promoting green economic growth, and improving human health.

3 Pathways of Nature-based Solutions

To clearly outline the specific implementation approaches and potential of NbS in various fields to address social challenges, it is necessary to categorize the types of NbS. NbS can be classified into 3 types: restoration, management, and protection. Within each type, a range of ecosystem-based approaches can be employed. Restoration types include ecological restoration, forest landscape restoration, and eco-engineering. Management types include integrated coastal zone management and integrated water resources management. Protection types include region-based conservation approaches, such as protected area management.

Below are some details of the mentioned three types:

1. Protection: Maximizing the use of natural or protected ecosystems by minimally or non-invasively safeguarding target ecosystems to maintain or enhance their service functions. For example, protecting mangroves in coastal areas to enhance coastal resilience and address disasters related to extreme weather events. Establishing networks of protected areas and regional conservation approaches to safeguard critical biodiversity hotspots and ecosystems. This can include establishing nature reserves, biodiversity corridors, and ecological networks to ensure long-term protection of biodiversity.

2. Management: Managing ecosystems: Moderately intervening in natural ecosystems and landscapes to enhance ecosystem services. For example, improving the functionality and resilience of agricultural ecosystems and their ability to withstand natural disasters through agroecological landscape design; enhancing the resilience of forest ecosystems to extreme events by increasing tree and genetic diversity; implementing appropriate silvicultural thinning in forests to improve ecological niches and facilitate natural regeneration and succession.

3. Restorations: Restore a degraded or lost ecosystem. This type includes human-made ecosystems, such as green roofs and green walls, which form the basis of urban green infrastructure. Natural infrastructure and green infrastructure utilize the design and management of natural systems to provide specific ecosystem services. For example, using wetlands to filter wastewater and provide water purification functions, or constructing green roofs and urban parks to provide cooling and purification functions in urban spaces, or restoring oyster reefs to protect the coastline from wave and storm surge erosion.

These NbS approaches are not mutually exclusive but can be combined to achieve larger-scale and more comprehensive benefits. For example, wetland restoration can provide not only water resource management functions but also biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. Therefore, when designing and implementing NbS, it is important to consider multiple factors, including the demand for ecosystem services, community participation, scientific knowledge, and technical capacity.

Forum on Nature-based Solutions for Climate

The forum was held successfully in North Point, Hong Kong, on 27 October 2023. The event witnessed the attendance of over 90 in-person participants, including representatives from the government, related industries, and interested corporates. This Nature-based Solutions-themed forum provided a platform for stakeholders to delve into the transformative potential of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) and their role in climate mitigation and adaptation.

Welcome to watch the review clip of the forum below.

Natural Climate Solutions Resource Centre 

In 2017, research led by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) demonstrated that NbS for climate ,natural climate solutions (NCS) have the potential to achieve one-third of the global greenhouse gas emission reductions needed to stabilize our climate. Since then, TNC scientists and partners have continued investigating how, when and where to invest in NbS to deliver on the world's most urgent climate goals.

TNC's Natural Climate Solutions Resource Center showcases some of the best examples of NbS for climate implementation worldwide, according to four featured biomes: forests, croplands, grasslands and wetlands. These case studies are intended to support a variety of stakeholders, including governments, community leaders, land managers, companies and investors. 

We have years—not decades—to address the interconnected crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. Please support TNC in addressing the climate crisis with NbS.