The sea has invaded the northern shore of Java Island, Indonesia, in recent years. It has engulfed entire communities and huge expanses rice paddy. The village resists any further advances. erecting brushwood barriersin the mud to support the natural regeneration mangroves.
This innovative nature-based approach to rising sea levels is being sponsored by the Indonesian government. Wetlands International is a Dutch-based environmental group. It could be replicated across Asia. Jane Madgwick CEO of Wetlands International, said that it could help at least 10,000,000 people in similar circumstances to restore and protect their coastlines within a decade.
However, it can only do so if local projects and financing are developed. But progress has been slow, she said. As a result, lives, livelihoods, as well as coastlines are being destroyed.
It continues as it does.
An increasing number of reviews and analyses are being done on the effectiveness of habitats in natural defenses. writes Siddharth NarayanEast Carolina University. Many local projects have been undertaken to restore ecosystems along coasts and mountains, river valleys, forests, and grassy prairies. This has helped to increase the resilience to climate change’s ravaging effects on millions of people.
One study found that less than 10 percent of the funding for climate adaptation in least developed countries went towards projects that harnessed natural resources.
These are generally cheaper and more efficient than engineering alternatives. They also have more benefits for ecosystems and less downsides. However, the political will and funding to turn pilot projects for nature-based adaptation to climate change into policy norms that benefit hundreds of millions more people is still lacking.
Currently, most nature-climate activities cannot be funded. Ebony HollandClimate researcher at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development.
After the Glasgow climate conference in November, rich countries have increased climate finance and fulfilled pledges to invest tens of millions of dollars to help poorer nations address climate change. Holland says that as the money is currently allocated, very little of it will be used to restore nature’s defenses against climate changes.
Nature-based climate adaption remains the least well-off subset of climate finance. First, because private investors, philanthropists and aid agencies, as well as development banks, are more likely to pay for climate mitigation projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions than for communities that adapt to climate change. According to Barbara Buchner, a San Francisco-based thinktank, adaptation has attracted less than 25%, and some measures only 5%, of international climate funding.
The Demak district in Java, Indonesia helps to maintain wooden sea walls.
COURTESY OF WETLANDS INTERNATIONAL
Second, because funders and policymakers still prefer engineering solutions. Holland found that less then 10 percent of climate adaptation funding went to projects that harnessed natural resources, which is often the least developed countries. The remaining 90 percent were poured concrete.
The UN Environment Programme and Global Commission on Adaptation, both international bodies established by the Dutch government, estimate that around 1% of global climate finance has been used to fund such nature-based adaptation projects.
The Glasgow government promised to double adaptation funding in order to close the funding gap between mitigation and adaptation. In Lahti in Finland, climate finance leaders from the top funding governments met earlier this month to discuss ways to achieve this. Official reports indicate that there was little discussion about the need for more projects that are nature-based. The main topic of the meeting was to find ways to give the private sector more involvement in adaptation finance.
Madgwick says this could be a setback for nature, as private financiers were in the past less interested in nature-based solutions than public sector donors.
The number of cases of nature-based adaptations that have been successful is increasing rapidly. One of the most important benefits of restoring coastal ecosystems, such as mangroves, to protect coastal communities, from storm waves and tidal surges, is best documented. These benefits are increasing as climate change accelerates.
A study has shown that salt marshes, seagrasses and coral reefs can all reduce storm surge heights at a lower cost than seawalls.
Half of the world’s mangroves have disappeared along coastlines, but those that remain protect 18 million people and property worth several tens of millions from flooding each year, according to Michael Beck, a marine scientist at University of California Santa Cruz. Their importance is only going to grow. Mangroves, unlike sea walls, seem to keep up with rising sea levels. They self-seed inland to maintain their barriers to storms and tidal surges, and to nurture marine fisheries.
Restoration would be most beneficial for the islands and river deltas in Asia, but also for other areas. StudyThe Nature Conservancy and the World Bank found that there is great potential in African countries like Guinea, Mozambique and Sierra Leone.
Restoring other coastal ecosystems can also be very effective. A ReviewNarayan, an international researcher who has studied 52 such projects, discovered that salt marshes (sea grasses) and coral reefs can all reduce the height of storms for a fraction of the price of sea walls.
Yet, scaling up is not keeping pace with the success stories of pilot projects.
The Rift Valley of Kenya is home to pastoralist communities around Lake Baringo. CreateThey have small enclosures that they can use to temporarily exclude livestock from their rangelands. This allows them to restore indigenous vegetation and protect the soils and ecosystems against worsening dry spells. According to the Kenya-based project originator, the work also improves local diets, provides new sources of income through the sale of livestock, harvested grass seed, grasses thatching, honey and charcoal. Rehabilitation of Arid Environments Trust.
As part of the wetlands restoration efforts in Canchayllo in the mountains of Peru, a community pond was revived.
A. Gomez / Instituto de Montaa
Yet, only a small percentage of Kenya’s 10,000,000 pastoralists have adopted the adaptation strategy. This could also help some of Africa’s most remote pastoral communities.
Parts of the Panchase Mountain Region of Nepal are a favourite with foreign trekkers. The restoration of wetlands is helping local communities to prevent worsening floods from droughts. It is also improving soils, revitalizing biodiversity and encouraging tourism. It is part of the Three-Nation Project known as The Mountain Ecosystems-based Adaptation ProgramUN agencies developed the concept ten years ago and implemented it in remote parts of Peru, Uganda, Nepal.
Despite the ambitious plans for new projects, including in Kenya, Bhutan, and Colombia to scale up, scaling up remains difficult. Most mountain communities that are affected by climate change are plagued with dam projects that take their water downstream. They don’t help them conserve their water or improve their climate resilience.
Some policymakers get the message. Zac Goldsmith, British environment minister with a briefing for foreign aid A committee of parliamentarians was informedIt was evident last year that nature-based solutions offer more value than you might think. Because nature can simultaneously deal with poverty, adaptation, mitigation, and adaptation, he stated that he preferred to invest in it.
More than half the climate pledges made to governments include nature-based solutions. However, actions are often less effective than intentions.
Why are they not the norm? Some, such Holland, blame funders. Madgwick asserts that finance is not a constraint. It’s more about politics. It is difficult to obtain support for project development.
She says that nature-based adaptive solutions offer a wide variety of long-term benefits that are often not covered by traditional timelines for assessing aid projects. This is because no single ministry can evaluate them. The silo structure in national budgets is a problem.
Keizrul bin Abullah, an engineer and chair of Wetlands International Malaysia, said that the slow progress in deploying natural-based adaptation in his country, as well as across Asia, is partly due to old-fashioned thinking. He said that engineers remain hesitant until concrete-based techniques are demonstrated to work.
Nathalie Seddon of Nature-Based Solutions Initiative at the University of Oxford agrees. Engineered solutions are usually able to be implemented with relative certainty regarding the type of benefits and their timeframe. [whereas]It is often difficult to predict and expensive to determine the ecosystem’s response. The ground is often lacking evidence of the value of nature-based adaptive measures.
Rob McDonald, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), agrees that science for nature-based climate adaptation is less developed than that for mitigation. Bronson, his former TNC colleague, said that he was inspired by Bronson. A widely cited report2017 found that sequestering carbon in natural ecosystems could provide more than 30% of cost-effective climate mitigation.
These coral reefs are being restored at Playa Blanca in Panama. They provide a crucial natural defense against rising waters.
Luis ACOSTA / AFP
The science behind adaptation is however less advanced. says McDonald. McDonald’s.
Nature-based adaptation is often viewed as a high-risk venture. Seddon says that nature-based solutions are becoming more prominent in climate change policy. He points out that such solutions are cited by more than half the climate pledges (known as Nationally Determined Contributions) made by governments in Glasgow. However, actions often lag behind the intentions.
Mangroves provide protection from cyclones in Bangladesh, a country that is at great risk from rising sea level. The government talks often about restoring them as a coastal defense strategy. Seddon? FoundOnly 12 percent of climate adaptation projects in the nation were certified as green solutions, while 88 percent were primarily engineered interventions.
Not all ecosystem restoration can bring the expected benefits for the most vulnerable communities. Siri Eriksen of Norway’s University of Life Sciences warns against any externally imposed project that could undermine local strategies to deal with changing climates. The British parliamentary committee warned that ignoring local concerns could lead to schemes that worsen or reinforce the vulnerabilities of marginalized communities. reported.
Now is the time to bring nature-based solutions to the forefront, as promised at Glasgow.
Lisa Schipper, of the Environmental Change Institute in Oxford, said that engineering projects have the worst track record. Many of them backfire, she said. Telled Yale Environment 360During the Glasgow climate summit, many of the poorest were left more vulnerable to climate change than before. For example, sea walls in Bangladesh protecting farmland from flooding can increase the risk of flooding in low-lying areas. This is vital for the poor and the landless.
There are billions of people at risk from climate change, so it is crucial that nature-based adaptation succeeds. After the Glasgow promises of increasing funding for adaptation, it is now that nature-based solutions should take center stage.
Ensure that adaptation funds go towards bolstering ecosystems is a great way to increase your chances of meeting international targets of conserving 30% of the earth’s lands, and waters. This goal will be agreed upon at the next meeting, the Convention on Biological Diversity, Kunming, China later in the year.
Seddon believes nature-based adaption can simultaneously address three of the greatest challenges of our time: climate change, biodiversity conservation, and human well being. However, these opportunities for delivering these synergies remain untapped at the moment.
