Articles

Doreen Stabinsky

Third World Network Penang, Malaysia

“NATURE-BASED solutions” (NbS)1 is a contested term. Academics write long peer-reviewed articles laying out criteria by which so-called NbS might be evaluated,2 whilst oil majors create new “nature-based solutions” business units unaligned with the basic elements of the definitional crite- ria being set out by the academics.3 At the end of the day, NbS means what the powerful actors using it to green their images want it to mean.

The phrase “nature-based solutions” says everything and nothing at the same time. Its proponents argue that such a broadly encompassing term provides opportunities to highlight a whole range of beneficial, biodiversity-protecting practices at the same time, and that packaging all these together in this term might help mobilize protection from a range of drivers of biodiversity and ecosystem loss by calling attention to the myriad ways in which societies benefit from “nature”.