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Day 1: Holistic Benefits of Nature-based Solutions
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Scaling Nature-based Solutions with Integrity
Opening the conference, we will assess the current state of nature-based solutions in policy and practice. Taking in a range of voices, spanning indigenous, scientific, economic, governmental and corporate, we will identify the main challenges and lay the groundwork for the conference. We'll also explore a considered strategy for effective and ethical advancing of nature-based solutions, including how to elevate their role in the Rio Conventions and have economy-wide targets in climate pledges at the UNFCCC COP30 in Belém.
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Nature-based Solutions for Health and Wellbeing
We will explore the interconnectedness of human wellbeing and the flourishing of our ecosystems. We will discuss evidence on how nature-based solutions in urban and natural settings, and green prescribing, can promote physical and mental health and foster a deeper connection between people and nature, as well as the conservation outcomes of improving healthcare. Health benefits of protecting and restoring nature, though increasingly well-evidenced, rarely inform policy and practice, so the panellists will provide insights and examples of how to address this.
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Nature-based Solutions for Adaptation and Humanitarian Crises
Nature-based solutions and hybrid approaches that blend nature and technology can play a potentially critical role in supporting adaptation to climate change, reducing disaster risk, supporting food security, and mitigating the social-environmental harm caused by humanitarian crises. Through exploring these issues, we will look to understand how to best integrate nature-based solutions into an effective adaptation policy.
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Day 2: Making the System Work for Nature
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Addressing Uncertainty and Building the Evidence
We will examine how we might best address uncertainties in the evidence-base on the effectiveness of nature-based solutions to societal challenges and the extent to which they bring benefits for communities and enhance biodiversity locally. We will critically evaluate new and emerging frameworks for monitoring and evaluation of socio-ecological sustainability and explore trans-disciplinary approaches to selecting suitable metrics that embed local rights and knowledge.
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Balancing Resilience Concerns around Nature-based Solutions
After discussing the interdependence of social and ecological resilience, we will explore approaches to enhancing this resilience in the face of climate change impacts and socio-political factors, including with adaptive management based on science and traditional knowledge. We will examine the significance of “short-term” benefits of nature-based solutions for cooling and adaptation, including in comparison to tech, with a view to developing a balanced approach to investment in climate solutions, recognising that, ultimately, thriving nature underpins a thriving economy.
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Governance, Markets and Financing for Nature
Recognising the interdependency of governance, markets and finance and with reference to real-world examples, we will discuss some of the creative ways of resourcing and implementing high integrity nature-based solutions, including building a bioeconomy, the role of markets, as well as grassroots public-civil society action and the potential for non-market approaches that share benefits and preserve wealth locally.
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Day 3:Reimagining the Future with Nature-based Solutions
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Remembering Our Profound Interconnectedness With Nature
The basis of reimagining the future starts with rekindling our relationship with the Earth, remembering we are just a strand in the great web of life rather than its master or architect. This requires a profound shift from an anthropocentric worldview to an ecocentric one. In this session, we will hear from a range of Indigenous voices about approaches to rekindling our connection with nature as a foundational driver of positive change. We will learn how we might be able to support a deeper recognition around the world that humans are an interwoven part of a beautiful web of life, breaking down the erroneous sense that, in talking about "nature", we are talking about something outside ourselves.
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Reimagining What 'Progress' Really Means In A Healthy Pro-Nature World
We desperately need to change our models of 'progress' so that our way of life moves to enhance rather than attack the web of life. We will explore the roles of biophilic markets, rights for nature, the nature of ‘human nature', and what this all means for policy makers. Learning from real-world examples, such as the Doughnut Economic Action Lab, we will imagine the different, more positive, futures we could progress towards together.
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Restoring Relationship with Nature-based Solutions
With a different view of progress beyond GDP, we will explore a wide range of projects that are helping us to positively reimagine and redesign a nature-based economy that is in service of well-being and the web of life. Some of these involve restoration through “commoning”, localised finance, providing legal rights for nature, and bolstering local governance and decision making especially by empowering indigenous communities.