Soon the last trees of the rainforest in Borneo are cut down. Land degradation combined with climate change have the potential to disrupt established ecological and land use systems, which in turn may lead to the failure of food and water supplies, with consequent negative impacts upon livelihoods and households adaptive capacity.

Is absolutely urgent to promote a transition in our society towards living within the limits of the biosphere allowing the maintenance and recovery of natural assets in a sustainable system of production and consumption. The continual destruction of the ability of nature to sustain our lives is the primary source of social displacement, wars, scarcity and inequalities. This is now accelerated by climate change, and the economic and social consequences are wide and pervasive: prolonged droughts, floods, typhoons, erosion of soils and desertification that are affecting communities, entire countries and the planet. Climate change is, therefore, a wide and strong source of conflicts within our socio-ecological systems.

One of the most effective forms of tackling climate change consequences (and its origins…) is using solutions based on nature itself. Forest, water and soil conservation, sustainable use and restoration can play a crucial role in maintaining carbon stocks, carbon sequestration and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, these solutions allow the maintenance of livelihoods, jobs, revenues, communities and families, so that mitigating migration, poverty and conflicts.

Nature-based approaches combine climate change mitigation, adaptation, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity conservation and sustainable resource management. That’s why these approaches are often called “no-regret” options, meaning that the outcomes are fundamental for the maintenance of the economy and livelihoods in any scenario. They are often cost-efficient measures and flexible in dealing with a constantly changing climate and its associated risks.

The earth’s ecosystems are an extremely important repository of carbon. According to the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity terrestrial and coastal ecosystems alone hold more than five times as much of this element as is currently in the atmosphere. In any case, land degradation combined with climate change have the potential to disrupt established ecological and land use systems, which in turn may lead to the failure of food and water supplies, with consequent negative impacts upon livelihoods and households adaptive capacity.

Nature-base solutions for climate change can also complement existing technical approaches and – in some cases – even replace them. Policy makers have the tendency to implement engineering solutions for adaptation, frequently creating more conflicts, rather than investing in natural solutions. Construction of dams for flood control is a good example – a sustainable landscape management approach able to retain water in forests, soils and underground. That could be cheaper and more efficient, but is often ignored.

We must to recognize, however, that poorly conceived climate change interventions may harm biodiversity and even reduce resilience to climate change. Governments have recognized this through the United Nations Convention on Climate Change by approving a series of social and environmental safeguards that cover issues such as avoiding the conversion of natural forests, incentivizing the protection and conservation of natural forests and their ecosystem services, and enhancing other social and environmental benefits. Extensive monoculture plantations can have an adverse effect on the environment…

However, maximizing the potential offered by sustainable land management and environmental protection practices requires a strategic, integrative approach. With carefully integrated nature-based policies, we have an extraordinary opportunity to help those using and managing land across the globe, not only for their own well-being, but to that of the entire planet.

Forest and landscape restoration is one of these nature-based solutions and is a process that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human well‐being in deforested or degraded forest landscapes. It involves people coming together to restore the function and productivity of degraded forest lands – through a variety of place-based interventions, including new tree plantings, managed natural regeneration or improved land management. Indeed, more than two billion hectares of land offer opportunities for restoration across the world.

Reaching land degradation neutrality is another nature-based solution that strongly contributes to climate change mitigation and adaptation. As estimated by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, about 1.5 billion people depend on degraded land, living in areas with water scarcity and being dependent on wood fuel and charcoal for cooking and heating. Land degradation neutrality is a state whereby the amount and quality of land resources necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security remain stable or increase within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems. This is the only way to save enough productive land to meet future demand for food, energy and water in the face of climate change.

A third possible approach to nature-based solutions is protected areas. Almost all natural and semi-natural ecosystems, including areas designated as protected areas, capture and store carbon by sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Such protected status reduces the likelihood of loss of carbon that is already present in vegetation and soils, and some protected areas may be actively managed to maintain or increase their sequestration potential. Actively managed protected areas also promote mitigation by avoiding conversion to other land uses, avoid habitat destruction and reduce risks of and impacts from extreme events such as storms, floods, droughts and sea-level rise.

These nature-based solutions could foster economic activities that are compatible with the new era we are living – the Anthropocene – allowing nature to recover its strength and actively promoting healing processes. This new rationale for the economic development is also a strategy for the management of conflicts associated with climate change. Considering we have been reaching and surpassing some limits of our planetary boundaries, deploying an integrated and articulated agenda towards this direction is absolutely urgent.