WCC 2020 Res 060 - Activity Report

The Nature-based Solutions Thematic Group (NbS TG) has actively driven capacity-building efforts, presenting on NbS and the Global Standard for NbS at the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s training courses, in French and Portuguese. They also hosted influential sessions at major global forums, including: "Showcasing Nature-based Solutions in Latin America" at the 77th UN General Assembly (UNGA) Science Summit; "Implementing Nature-based Solutions Around the Globe to Achieve Multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals" at the 79th UNGA Science Summit; Two sessions focusing on integrating ecosystem services science and tools and Nature-based Solutions to better address societal challenges, at the Ecosystem Services Partnership Conferences in Heraklion, Greece, and Wageningen, the Netherlands; presented the NbS-GS to multiple local stakeholders and local governments, at the Council for Watershed Health, California, USA; as well as at the Ecological Conservation and Restoration Forum, in China.
The NbS TG presented the NbS work and NbS-GS in several academic courses and frameworks, such as: the University of Trento’s Environmental Sustainability and International Cooperation seminars in Italy; CIBIO (Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources) at the University of Porto, Portugal; at different MSc courses, at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Portugal; Participated as a panelist to discussion national and international approaches, at the conference on "Nature-based Solutions and Water-related Risks Insights from Humanities and Social Sciences" at the National School for Water and Environmental Engineering of Strasbourg, in France; and Participated as panelist at the Mega-Eco Symposium, at the University of Pennsylvania, USA.

The CEM NbS TG also participated in panels and high-level discussions at the Climate Change COP27, COP28 and COP29, UNEA5 & UNEA6, and at the Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP15 and COP16, where, at the IUCN Pavilion, they organized critical events such as "Nature-based Solutions to Achieve Net-Zero Targets: From Supply Chains to Carbon Markets", where experts discussed how the NbS-GS can improve carbon market approaches and accounting. They also led a panel on the Ecosystem-based Approach, examining its evolution since 2009 and the role of NbS in addressing global challenges. Other engagements included discussions on "Nature-based Solutions for Health" in collaboration with WWF, emphasizing a One Health approach.

The CEM NbS TG has made significant contributions to advancing Nature-based Solutions (NbS) through impactful publications, high-level engagements, and capacity-building initiatives during the last 4 years. Their work includes several notable publications, such as "Towards Nature-based Solutions at Scale: 10 Case Studies from China", which presents insightful examples of large-scale NbS implementation in China; "The evolution and future of research on Nature-based Solutions to address societal challenges", in Nature Portfolio’s Communications Earth & Environment; "The IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions™ as a Tool for Enhancing the Sustainable Development of Marine Aquaculture" in Frontiers in Marine Science; "Ensuring that nature-based solutions for climate mitigation address multiple global challenges", in One Earth; "Delta Challenges and Nature-based Solutions in Dialogue", published in the Journal of Delta Urbanism; as well as "Nature-based Solutions for Natural Hazards and Climate Change" and being editor of the related Special Issue, in Frontiers in Environmental Science. Additionally, the group played a pivotal role in shaping policy frameworks with "Proposing the IUCN Global Standard for NbS as the Main Operational Framework to Implement UNEA Resolution 5/5 on NbS for Supporting Sustainable Development", presented at UNEA6. Last, multiple NbS TG members participated in a three-years initiative led by the TG Lead and co-Lead (with total a participation of 71 authors from 23 countries), during which: they assessed NbS case studies all around the globe with the IUCN Global Standard for NbS (NbS-GS), to better understand how NbS were implemented in different contexts, to share feedback on their use of the NbS-GS, and disseminate good practices; the case studies authors shared ways in which different types of knowledge were used to better design NbS, and they looked into ways Indigenous People and local communities