Daily Maverick
Dailymaverick logo

World

World, Our Burning Planet

‘Greenwashing’ alert – African delegates red-flag nature buzzwords at biodiversity summit

‘Greenwashing’ alert – African delegates red-flag nature buzzwords at biodiversity summit
The ‘nature positive’ pavillion at the UN Biodiversity Conference, COP15, Palais des Congrès, Montreal, Canada. (Photo: Julia Evans)
Julia Evans
By Julia Evans
23 Dec 2022
Facebook
0
Nature buzzwords like “nature-based solutions” and “nature positive” have been a contentious issue at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity, among scientists who have warned that some nature-based solutions to climate issues come at the cost of biodiversity.

‘Nature-based solutions are really perhaps the one thing that Africa has going in its favour, if we have the right safeguards in place,” said David Obura, a Kenyan biodiversity scientist whose current research is focused on global science-policy processes for biodiversity, coral reefs, climate and sustainability.

Standing next to the “nature positive” pavilion at the UN Biodiversity Conference, one day before the historic Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted, Obura told Daily Maverick that nature-based solutions are the “solution for Africa” because the large majority of people on the continent still live off the land or off the waters, and without strong social services, maintaining healthy ecosystems is the “best safety net most people have”.

However, nature buzzwords like “nature-based solutions” and “nature positive” have been a contentious issue at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity, among scientists who have warned that some nature-based solutions to climate issues come at the cost of biodiversity. African delegates and indigenous communities are sceptical that they will be used as tools for businesses to commodify natural resources while greenwashing.

After two gruelling weeks of negotiations, and hundreds of brackets worked through (a term not agreed upon is bracketed) the term “nature-based solutions” appeared in two of the final 23 targets that need to be met by 2030 in the global effort to halt biodiversity loss. 

Read in Daily Maverick: “Historic moment for nature and humanity as Kunming-Montreal framework adopted at UN biodiversity conference”

The targets call for the use of nature-based solutions and/or ecosystem-based approaches to minimise the impact of climate change on biodiversity and to restore, maintain and enhance nature’s contribution to people. 

The “and/or of ecosystem-based approaches” was added to the final text during negotiations this month, because to many at the conference there is a significant difference between those two terms, and what they mean for future conservation and restoration efforts.

The South African government made it clear that it prefers ecosystem-based approaches to nature-based solutions. (Photo: Julia Evans)



“Ecosystem-based approaches” is a term that was adopted by Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2000, and basically means using ecosystems and biodiversity to help people adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Shonisani Munzhedzi, CEO of the South African National Biodiversity Institute, explained that ecosystem-based approaches are “how people use biodiversity to enhance resilience to climate change”, such as when a water system becomes polluted (for instance, a mine dump polluting water systems in parts of Soweto) the natural filtration system of that water system through the Klipspruit wetlands system will clean the water.

More recently, the broader term “nature-based solutions” has become popular, especially among developed nations. It can be defined as using features of nature in a sustainable way to address socio-environmental issues, such as food and water security, the climate crisis and biodiversity. Going into the conference, the South African government made it clear that it supports ecosystem-based approaches to climate adaptation (dealing with the impact of climate change) over nature-based solutions.

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment said ecosystem-based adaptation is mainly used to address the adaptation of people to climate change, and “has strong intellectual connections with the fields of social-ecological systems, resilience and participatory approaches that cause it to not be a perfect subset of nature-based solutions”.

Climate dominating nature-based solutions


An issue of concern is that without safeguards, and without considering the whole ecosystem at stake, nature-based solutions to address climate change can harm biodiversity.

Climate and biodiversity scientist and acting director of the School for Climate Studies at Stellenbosch University, Professor Guy Midgley, told Daily Maverick before COP15: “African negotiators must understand the risks of falling victim to afforestation efforts in naturally unforested ecosystems (like grasslands and savannas) that threaten to ruin indigenous biodiversity, ecosystem services and livelihoods across hundreds of thousands of hectares, for little potential carbon gain, and at knockdown prices for African countries.”

Obura explained that 10 to 15 years ago the climate space took over the language on nature-based solutions, with companies or industries realising that they can continue with business as usual (continue to emit carbon dioxide), and just pay for their emissions in the form of “carbon offsets” by paying for trees to be planted somewhere else. 

Trees can be used for carbon sequestration – when CO2 is trapped from the atmosphere and stored, thereby mitigating climate change.

“For them from a financial or markets perspective, they just want a solution quickly,” said Obura “So they think, okay, plant fast-growing trees somewhere and that’s good. The problem is if you plant the wrong type of trees, and in the wrong ecosystem, you might be taking up carbon, but then you’re losing all the other benefits from that ecosystem.”

Munzshedzi, who was also co-chair of the resource mobilisation contact group at COP15, acknowledged that nature-based solutions are sometimes not helpful for biodiversity, since the climate space has co-opted them, and sometimes there’s greenwashing from companies.

The ‘nature positive’ pavilion at COP15, Palais des Congrès, Montreal, Canada. (Photo: Julia Evans)



Khungeka Njobe from WWF SA told Daily Maverick: “Some people use the terminology of nature-based solutions as a way of promoting tree planting, which is the easiest thing you do in terms of intervention [for climate change mitigation], and that can amount to greenwashing.”

Keletso Malepe, national chapter coordinator of the South African Youth Biodiversity Network, said: “I think it’s becoming one of those mechanisms that companies or countries use to continue doing the same thing and saying that they’re making a change by offsetting the damage they’re doing in an area by doing conservation projects somewhere else.

Read in Daily Maverick: “Delegates Walk Out of Key COP15 Biodiversity Funding Talks”

“We tend to forget that ecosystems function in a very complex way – if you cut down a tree here, you’re not just cutting down a tree, you’re cutting down a habitat for a specific organism, which depends on a specific ecosystem.”

Obura said the offsetting process shouldn’t allow companies to continue to emit as much carbon dioxide as they want. He said they should first reduce their carbon emissions as far as they can, and use today’s technologies to deal with those last marginal emissions that can’t necessarily be reduced right now. 

Mistrust from Africa


Munzhedzi told Daily Maverick at the start of the conference that there are divergent views on how nature-based solutions are considered.

At the 5th United Nations Environment Assembly (Unea 5), held in Kenya in February 2022, “nature-based solutions” was formally defined, but Munzhedzi said the reason the term was even discussed as an issue at Unea 5 “was in recognition of the fact that between developed and developing countries there were divergent views on what it would mean, especially in different contexts”.

Obura was one of the few biodiversity scientists from Africa attending COP15, which he says is part of the reason there is distrust from developing countries.

While South Africa prefers ecosystem-based adaptation to nature-based solutions, Munzhedzi said the country recognises the process of defining safeguards for nature-based solutions, such as ensuring indigenous people and local communities are part of the process, and that biodiversity and natural ecosystems are not compromised in the process of adapting to and mitigating climate change. 

“We need the safeguards, and [to] be very clear on where it applies. There may be certain limitations to it, there may be opportunities to it. How do we use it properly until that is clarified?”

In the Unea 5 resolution there is an acknowledgement of concerns about the potential misuse of the concept of nature-based solutions. 

“The thing is, nature-based solutions are a good idea,” said Obura. “It’s the same thing as ecosystem-based approaches because ecosystems and nature are the same thing. That’s what’s so frustrating about it.

“If you have standards and criteria and regulations to say, it only counts as a nature-based solution if you ensure that you don’t do any harm to another part of nature.”

Obura said there are examples of where planting trees can benefit climate goals and restore biodiversity: “If you plant the right trees in the right areas you can reforest the natural ecosystem back to what it was and you can get many other benefits from that for biodiversity and for people.”

Obura, who was at COP15 to provide information to delegates on the targets relating to biodiversity and climate links, said that his concern for Africa is that this mistrust over nature-based solutions will lead to missed opportunities:

“I’ve been trying to interact with and support the Africa group. The problem for us is that the science is coming from outside of Africa. In general it comes from Western institutions, often collaborating with African scientists.”

While we have excellent biodiversity scientists back home, they don’t generally have positions that are funded to spend time in this policy space, “so we’re lecturing in universities, doing some research or have administrative responsibilities, and so there’s very few African scientists here”. 

As a result, African negotiators don’t trust where the technical and scientific information is coming from. “They’re wondering, what’s behind it? Is there another agenda behind it?” said Obura. 

“So what I’ve been trying to do is to show that, actually, a lot of the science supports our needs and our intent, particularly around sustainable use and people interacting with nature and benefiting from it.”

Mistrust from indigenous communities


At the start of week two at COP15, during a panel discussion with indigenous people, young people and the Convention on Biological Diversity alliance about nature-based solutions and nature-positive approaches, Thomas Joseph from the Hupa valley tribe in the US said nature-based solutions are “not a climate solution” but a “public relations scheme”.

Joseph argued that “the legacy of colonial powers continues through nature-based solutions and conservation NGOs, large development institutions and international finance”.



Visit Daily Maverick's home page for more news, analysis and investigations



“When we continue to commodify our mother Earth as a mechanism to be used to solve the climate crisis or protect biodiversities, we’re using the same concepts and steps that got us in the climate chaos in the first place.” 

Others on the panel said they did not want the term “nature-based solutions” included in the final text of the global biodiversity framework. A week later it did appear in the final text.

“I totally understand why because the use of these terms has been abused in the past,” said Obura. “Why should indigenous peoples in Africa and other places trust what’s being pitched to them by business and by foreign countries, because they have been taken advantage of in every other way in the past, so why should that change now?”

Example of nature-based solutions working in South Africa


“It’s really unfortunate that we’ve lost this term ‘nature-based solutions’ to something that is not a nature-based solution,” said Obura, referring to afforestation (planting trees) with non-native monocultures that can result in maladaptation.

But there are ways that nature-based solutions can be implemented to address biodiversity or climate change (or both) while benefiting the community on the ground and not damage natural ecosystems.

Njobe from WWF SA presented an example of this at a side-event at COP15 on job opportunities that can arise from nature-based solutions – the Umzimvubu Catchment Partnership, which aims to conserve the Umzimvubu catchment and river system by promoting traditional knowledge of sustainable cattle farming practices in Matatiele, Eastern Cape.

Kenyan biodiversity scientist David Obura believes nature-based solutions are the 'solution for Africa'. (Photo: Julia Evans)



Overgrazing and the expansion of invasive alien species in South Africa affect land ecosystems, cattle farming and water sources.

Samir Randera-Rees from WWF SA explained to Daily Maverick that overgrazing of grasslands leads to extreme erosion which causes the exposed soils to be washed away, contaminating nearby water sources.

This not only affects local people, who have to walk further to find water, but other parts of the country since the ​​Umzimvubu catchment and river system is a strategic water source.

To address this, a voluntary alliance and collaboration with the local government and traditional authorities to restore overgrazed land and restore a healthy water system was set up in 2013. The project promotes traditional sustainable farming practices, like rotational grazing (which was partly lost due to the community losing young herders to the migrant labour system), erosion control, the removal  of exotic invasive plant species and wetland rehabilitation. 

Randera-Rees said that since the project’s inception nearly 10 years ago, R44-million has been generated from cattle auctions – which is significant in an area that is extremely economically depressed.

Along with providing socioeconomic benefits, this nature-based solution has restored the integrity of the grasslands and the ecological functions of the watershed, and included indigenous people’s practices and participation in the process.

Echoing what Obura emphasised, Randera-Rees said: “Nature is the ecological safety net that allows people to continue to live in the face of dysfunctional municipalities, drought, poverty… nature is what maintains people’s well-being.” DM/OBP

This story was produced as part of the 2022 CBD COP15 Fellowship organised by Internews’s Earth Journalism Network.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REeWvTRUpMk

Categories:

Tags: