Raquel Castillo Puentes dreams of protecting her lands and building a climate-resilient future for generations to come with the support of a Green Climate Fund-financed UNDP-supported project in Colombia’s La Mojana.
Thematic Area
The conservation, rehabilitation, and management of biodiversity and ecosystems increases resilience to climate change and has the potential to provide low-cost and long-term solutions to protect lives, livelihoods, and infrastructure, while advancing the achievement of multiple Sustainable Development Goals. UNDP supports countries to integrate conservation and targeted restoration of natural ecosystems and degraded landscapes – such as mangrove forests, wetlands, and catchment forests – into an overarching strategy for ecosystem-based adaptation that provides protection against climate change threats, either as part of a hybrid adaptation strategy or as standalone measures. The main areas of work include enhanced management to safeguard ecosystem services, restoration of coastal wetlands to protect communities against storms, slope stabilization through agroforestry and natural forest regeneration, halting or reversing land degradation and desertification, promoting sustainable productive landscapes, and improving water resources management, as well as catalyzing finance from the private sector for ecosystem-based approaches in order to build socio-ecological resilience. Ecosystem-based adaptation is included within countries’ National Adaptation Plans, and cuts across multiple sectors with relevance for food and water security, among other societal needs.
Human stories
In Cuba, ecosystem-based adaptation is a cost-effective way to preserve and restore natural habitats and protect coastal communities.
With financing from the Global Environment Facility and backing from UNDP, Bhutan is building resilience for its people, forests, and wildlife. The partnership has reaped real-world benefits for tens of thousands of Bhutanese, including in the most remote mountain communities.
Resources
Nature-based Solutions Valuation Report
Incorporating climate-informed cost-benefit analysis into assessment of NbS in Latin America and the Caribbean, this report summarizes a scoping exercise that surveyed existing toolkits to support cost-benefit analysis of NbS and analyzed these toolkits to assess their appropriateness for meeting the needs of policymakers, as well as climate change, ecosystems, and biodiversity practitioners in the region.
A healthy marine ecosystem for Abemama’s food security
Activity report from a team from the Coastal Fisheries Division in Tanaea, Kiribati, upon return from Abemama island having successfully carried out coral planting and seagrass restoration. The main goal of the activities was to help restore the health of these two marine habitats (coral and seagrass) to support the ecosystem for coastal marine species and to build the island's resilience to climate change.
Nature-based solutions policy brief - jobs and livelihoods
UNDP has been implementing NbS to support climate adaptation and mitigation and biodiversity conservation throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. These projects provide a strong evidence base of the jobs and livelihood benefits of investments in NbS, including direct job creation, new livelihood opportunities, and increased incomes from payments for ecosystem services (PES), certification, biodiversity-friendly products, and increased productivity.
