What Are Nature Based Solutions?

The use of the catchy term "Nature Based Solutions" (NBS) would suggest that somehow these solutions are different than conventional agricultural or timber practices.? And of course, some of them are.? Nature Based Solutions is now a catch-all phrase being used to describe everything from permeable pavement and green roofs to restoring peat bogs.?

Because the range of actions described as NBS is so wide, it's difficult to say what they are and what they are not.? But it's important to try, because otherwise the term can and will be watered down until it doesn't mean anything at all.?

The word 'sustainability' came into common use in the 1980's with the publication of the UN Report on 'Our Common Future', and has always contained the notion that human economic activity has to occur in balance with the health of natural systems.? In 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment provided a gigantic global assessment of what those natural systems actually do for us humans.

Part of the root cause of the problem with terminology was that the report mushed together the things that nature does when we protect and restore it with the things nature does when we completely alter and manage it.? The report describes, side by side, 'supporting and regulating' services like flood regulation, water purification, and soil formation, and 'provisioning' services that provide people with wood, food, crops, and fuel.?

Defining conventional timber and agriculture as ecosystem services, the Assessment muddied the distinction between taking from nature and taking care of nature.? This is not to say that managed crop land and timber land can't be managed well so that ecosystem services are maintained or even increased over time.? But it is to say that ecosystem services are not measured in bushels or board feet.

If the term Nature Based Solutions is going to mean anything to the generations to come, it is going to have to mean that something changed, on the ground, as a result of its use.? Of course future generations will need the products created by harvesting trees and grains and so on, but to make the claim that harvesting is a solution for the future, we're going to have to understand how that harvesting is related to ecological health.? To do that we'll have to use metrics that reflect carbon, water, and biodiversity.

If verifiable changes on the ground don't accompany claims that a NBS is being delivered, the use of the term could become just another form of greenwashing, and an invitation to skepticism and controversy.

This would be a great missed opportunity, because of course carbon, water, and biodiversity benefits from working lands can be verified.? When vegetation for pollinators or hedgerows are incorporated into farms, planted and cared for, then the owners and managers of that cropland are doing something that helps pollination.? When owners and managers of timberland reduce sedimentation in streams by increasing setbacks or implementing timber harvest plans that avoid nesting birds then they are doing something that helps water quality and biodiversity.

And there are specific types of NBS that can provide verifiable sequestration of carbon too.? Despite recent controversy about the legitimacy of carbon offsets at least some nature based actions offer reasonable additionality and durability and so are moving in the right direction. A recent article in Nature reviewed 43 types of 'Nature Based Climate Solutions', and found high confidence in tropical and temperate forest conservation and reforestation.

Still, the reason that there is confidence in real NBS is because there's a measurable result of these actions.? It's the ecological success criteria from restoration of wetlands - and their rigorous measurement - that has led to the acceptance of mitigation banking under the Clean Water Act.? There is a clear difference on the land before the restoration and after, so any claim about restoration results can be verified.?

Nature Based Solutions are a real thing, and a very important thing at that.? But let's be careful with the use of the term, so that it doesn't get blurred into meaninglessness.? Conventional agriculture and timber production is not a Nature Based Solution, unless the term is just a rebranding of what's been going on for decades.? We can do better than that.