WCC 2020 Res 031 - Activity Report

The CEM NbS Thematic Group has participated in several workshops / presentations in the Mediterranean Region, to promote the IUCN work on Nature-based Solutions (NbS) and the Global Standard for NbS, for different regions and for different types of stakeholders, among them recently: SMILES COST Research Project Meeting – Cyprus; NbS workshop for M.Sc. students. UTAD – Portugal; Ecofuture research project on the conservation of the Jordan Valley; the University of Trento’s Environmental Sustainability and International Cooperation seminars in Italy.
The NbS TG co-lead organised advance courses in River restoration under the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master in Applied Ecohydrology (MAEH) supported by UNESCO Ecohydrology Programme, and doing presentations on NbS in the context of EA, Eco-DRR, restoration, for multiple students from several countries, at the University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal. She also co-led the Advance course in Urban Ecology in a joint post-graduation between Portugal (UTAD) and Brazil (Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, with multiple students from different companies and organizations. Presenting NbS to tackle societal challenges in urban context.

A CEM publication on “Applying the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions™: 21 case studies from around the globe” will be launched in the upcoming month and has multiple case studies from the Mediterranean, showcasing successful implementation of NbS interventions to address societal challenges relevant to the region (from France, Greece, Tunisia, Spain and Portugal). This CEM initiative allowed different stakeholders groups to become very familiar with the IUCN Global Standard for NbS (NbS-GS), get the support to understand it and implement it to assess their case studies against the 8 criteria, improve their own NbS interventions and scale up the NbS in the region. The findings of this book and the feedback received from the experts on the Global Standard for NbS has supported the update process of the NbS-GS.