Nature-Based Solutions and Landscape and Jurisdictional Approaches: Complementary means to achieve lasting benefits

Among policymakers, practitioners, companies, funders, and investors, nature-based solutions (NbS) and landscape and jurisdictional approaches (LA/JAs) continue to gain prominence as a means to halt and reverse nature loss.

However, these concepts overlap in scope, and the synergies between them are not universally understood.

Given the multitude of terms used to describe NbS and LA/JAs, many ask:

• How are they similar and different?

• Is one approach more effective?

• Are NbS and LA/JAs complementary?

We aim to answer these questions here, beginning by defining each approach and ultimately addressing the potential for NbS and LA/JAs to advance the international nature agenda and realize political and corporate commitments outlined in the:

• Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF);

• Paris Agreement;

• Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi); and

• Science Based Targets Network (SBTN).

What are Nature-Based Solutions and Landscape and Jurisdictional Approaches?

The United Nations recognizes NbS and ecosystem-based approaches (EBAs) as the primary action framework for the GBF [1] providing a political basis for definitions and high-integrity implementation of these approaches.

In the case of LA/JAs, the terminology is especially challenging since there are multiple synonyms depending on the context. An analysis by EcoAgriculture Partners identified roughly 80 different terms similar to LA/JAs, such as “ecoregional planning”, “eco-territorial development”, and “holistic land management”[2]. Recently, the LA/JA practitioner community agreed on four Core Criteria for LA/JAs, establishing a tangible framework to guide the development, execution, and assessment of effective initiatives using these approaches. Companies and other actors can now use this framework to guide the establishment of concrete landscape, seascape, and jurisdictional engagement targets and pathways.

LA/JAs and NbS are:

• Based on science and reduce pressures on Earth system boundaries specific to biodiversity (natural ecosystems and working landscapes);

• Examples of best practice for sustainable management and the conservation of natural resources;

• Grounded in integrated socio-environmental and economic assessments, planning, and monitoring systems; and

• Related but distinct place-based approaches to achieve overarching sustainability outcomes on the ground.

The Complementarity of Landscape and Jurisdictional Approaches and Nature-Based Solutions

LA/JAs aim to:

• Align multiple stakeholders around a common vision of sustainability;

• Achieve multiple nature, climate, and people-centered goals at a landscape scale; and

• Improve the overall connectivity and operationalization of policies and sustainable interventions (such as NbS) in a landscape.

NbS are one category of interventions that leverage nature to deliver multiple benefits that may or may not be implemented within a landscape or jurisdiction.

LA/JAs can facilitate delivery of high-quality NbS when they are effectively designed and implemented.

On the other hand, NbS deliver better and more resilient outcomes when they are embedded in LA/JAs.

However, they are not exactly the same. The following chart highlights how each concept manifests when implemented alone and the “sweet spot” when they converge:

View larger version of graphic

The key differentiators between LA/JAs and NbS are:

• The scale and spatial design of implementation;

• The comprehensiveness of the goals and actions they aim to achieve;

• The level of governance and transparency around them; and

• The temporal commitment and vision for the strategy.

NbS are usually applied at a smaller, project-level scale, primarily with short-term results, and don’t necessarily have to include multi-stakeholder processes/platforms to decide on collective goals and actions.

In contrast, the spatial design of LA/JAs occurs at a landscape/jurisdictional scale, building on a longer-term vision, and has collectively defined goals, actions, and monitoring processes that consider social needs and interests. LA/JAs always require multiple stakeholders’ involvement. Specifically, JAs emphasize the importance of governmental participation and commitment while NbS could be implemented individually by private, public, or civil society organizations. Rigorous LA/JAs secure enabling conditions that support direct interventions, including optimization of law and public policy enforcement.

Conclusion

• LA/JAs and NbS are important complementary approaches to action. Both tackle nature loss, degradation, and social and economic injustice. LA/JAs deliver the broadest outcomes for nature, climate, and communities when they leverage NbS to deliver against landscape strategies.

• In the same way, the impacts of NbS are more effective, durable, and transformational when embedded in LA/JAs. When brought together, they can achieve multiple socio-environmental benefits at local, landscape/jurisdictional, and global scales.

• Integration within a LA/JA is a core component of high-quality NbS. When embedded within a landscape strategy, NbS help deliver impact at meaningful scales, and a LA/JA’s multi-stakeholder governance and alignment with government policy ensuring durable NbS impacts.

• Investing in nature is a highly efficient delivery mechanism for multiple impacts. NbS build on the connections/interlinkages between climate, nature, and human well-being to benefit all three. LA/JAs that incorporate NbS within holistic landscape strategies are best positioned to secure lasting and resilient outcomes.

• LA/JAs provide opportunities to align and connect multiple NbS and other interventions. They serve an umbrella function, ensuring all interventions across a landscape or jurisdiction help deliver scaled impacts, including delivery on regional, national, and global commitments like those in the GBF, the Paris Agreement, and the SBTi and SBTN.

• Capital markets, companies, policymakers, and other landscape stakeholders are encouraged to leverage LA/JAs and NbS in their transition/policy plans for nature. NbS and LA/JAs are effective mechanisms to address the interconnected challenges facing nature, climate, and people and to build intergenerational resilience at a meaningful scale. LA/JAs and NbS reinforce one another when they are applied together in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) and corporate Nature Transition Plans (NTPs).

Learn More

• CDP Meeting Nature Goals: Landscape and Jurisdictional Approaches

• WWF Nature-Based Solutions Origination Platform

Footnotes

1. Convention on Biological Diversity | Ecosystem Approach

2. IUCN | Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions

3. EcoAgriculture Partners | Defining Integrated Landscape Management for Policy Makers

In Partnership with World Wildlife Fund.