Hi Reader,
For too long, nature has not been given any voice or “seat at the table” when decisions have been made that directly impact nature's resilience and health. But that is changing with the nature-positive movement growing in strength and awareness, thanks in part to campaigning from a coalition of 27 nature NGOs. Additionally, a landmark UN treaty signed in 2022 called The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) lays out a framework for global biodiversity, aiming to reach the global vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050.
The framework sets the action agenda for global biodiversity and includes:
- Halting the extinction of known threatened species and significantly reducing extinction risk
- Ensuring at least 30% of degraded terrestrial areas, inland water, and coastal and marine ecosystems are under effective restoration
- Ensuring at least 30% of terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas are effectively conserved and managed
- Reducing the rates of introduction and establishment of other known or potential invasive alien species by at least 50% by 2030
- Reducing pollution risks and impacts of pollution from all sources to prevent harmful impacts on biodiversity
- Minimising the impact of climate change and ocean acidification on biodiversity
- Mainstreaming biodiversity into decision-making across government and business
In this edition of Interconnected, we dive into the growing nature-positive movement and explore the different ways it's evolving and supporting the transformation of the economy and society. This includes ensuring that we, as humans, respect and work with the beautiful life-sustaining systems that provide life on Earth and account for more-than-humans in decision-making.
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Nature Positive Design
A note from Leyla:
In my latest article, I explore the multifacets of the evolving nature-positive movement and present opportunities for moving beyond the dominant approach to design — human-centric — to alternative ways of designing in more life-centric ways. Read the intro below and click through to keep reading:
The built environment and designed world have profound impacts on all non-humans that coexist with us here on this only known life-sustaining planet in the entire universe. As a result of human development, the weight of the built environment exceeds the weight of all living things. This is just one of many indicators that we are living in the Anthropocene — a shift in the geological time records that demonstrates the consequential impact humans have had on the entire Earth System.
Moving from human-centric to nature-positive design requires a dramatic course correction, one that some practicing commercial designers are already undertaking. However, the majority still remain unaware of, or neglect the need to do so. This is part of the nature-knowledge deficit, whereby we, as modern human-centric beings, have abandoned our understanding of the connection to and reliance upon nature. At some point, we must consider the ramifications of continuing with the design-as-usual approach to creating manufactured products and the built environment at the dramatic cost to all of nature.
Nature-positive design requires consideration of impacts before, during and after the design process. This means designers need to have the ability to do impact science on the social and environmental implications of design decisions, or they need to have the resources to work with and draw upon the expertise of impact scientists (such as life cycle assessment) who can inform the design process with the full picture impact information needed to produce outcomes that are nature-positive.
The framing of nature-positive design is about actively generating positive impacts for nature, by design, whilst creating solutions that meet human needs in restorative and regenerative ways. This will require a significant shift in the way business models are built, design briefs are framed and design solutions delivered. Fundamentally, this means that more-than-humans are considered in the development of products, buildings, and policies, and nature gets an equal seat at the table. Keep reading >
What is Nature Positive?
The goal is to halt and restore nature loss by 2030, and central to the definition of Nature Positive is to ‘protect what is left and improve the rest’.
According to the Nature Positive Initiative: “Delivering the Nature Positive goal requires measurable net-positive biodiversity outcomes through the improvement in the abundance, diversity, integrity and resilience of species, ecosystems and natural processes. The Nature Positive goal is designed to drive society to deliver a measurable absolute improvement in the state of nature against a defined baseline, which will in turn improve nature’s ability to contribute to human wellbeing. The definition was first published in 2020, and is summarized in the following graphic:
The Sixth Great Extinction
It’s not a pretty read, but the reality is that human actions have changed the world so much that we have entered into what scientists call the sixth great extinction, a mass die off of biodiversity. Here are three ways you can learn about this:
- A crash course from Berkeley
- Get the low down of the former 5 great extinctions from ScienceAlert
- Watch this cute video from London School of Economics on the topic.
LISTEN
Our Better Nature: How The Great Outdoors Can Improve Your Life
Did you know that nature can reduce crime in cities and has a significantly positive impact on our brains when we encounter it in urban environments? This podcast from Hidden Brain with Dr. Ming Kuo offers a fascinating look at the new science of our brains on nature.
REFLECT + ENGAGE
Explore Ways to Take Action Now:
It’s depressing to know that we have collectively had such a catastrophic impact on nature, but there are things we can do! One study discussed by the World Land Trust has found that there are tangible actions that will reverse nature loss:
- Protecting just 1.2% of the Earth’s land surface area, via the targeted protection of 16,825 sites, could prevent the imminent extinction of thousands of the world’s most threatened species.
- The majority (75%) of these sites are in the world’s tropical and subtropical moist forests.
- Their protection would cost an estimated US$263 billion, or just 3.8% of the global subsidies for fossil fuels in 2022 (at around US$7 trillion).
- Current conservation efforts could do more to protect threatened species, as only 7% of the protected areas created in the past five years overlap with these recommended sites.
Explore ICAN’s list of 47,000 species threatened with extinction
There are also technical movements that are helping activate nature positive. These include: