Sessions

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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

  Connection with nature can be enormously beneficial to human health and wellbeing. In particular, we will discuss evidence on how bringing nature into urban areas, and green prescribing, can promote physical and mental health, as well as fostering a deeper connection between people and nature. Out of this, we will explore how these benefits might better inform policy and practice.
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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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  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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  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 or biocentric worldview. In this session we will hear from a range of voices to explore the importance of deepening our connection with nature as a foundational driver of positive change. We will ask how we might be able to support a deeper recognition around the world that we humans are an intricately 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. In this discussion, 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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  Tools to redesign a nature-based economy and examples in practice

  With a different view of progress (beyond GDP) we will explore which tools are already emerging that are redesigning towards a wellbeing nature-based economy that is in service to life. Some of the tools we will learn from include: localising finance, providing legal rights for nature, bolstering local governance and decision making. After exploring the evidence for a new model of progress and how nature-based solutions can feed into the economy, including with a bioeconomy approach, we will discuss strategies for how best to do this.