Outsmart climate change: work with nature! Enhancing the Mediterranean’s climate resilience through Nature-based Solutions

While climate change is becoming more and more of a concrete reality, impacting people and places throughout the Mediterranean region, a broad range of Nature-based Solutions are available to enhance society’s resilience in this new, dynamic and highly challenging context. Nature-based Solutions to enhance climate resilience are pragmatic solutions building on the services and resources provided by ecosystems and biodiversity, which are more sustainable, robust and often more cost-efficient than conventional man-made solutions alone. Using nature as a solution implies working with nature, instead of against it, and reaping the multiple benefits it offers over a long time.

This policy paper describes what Nature-based solutions are, why they are relevant for the Mediterranean, its potential to address Mediterranean climate vulnerability and what is needed to implement Nature-based solutions. It finally offers key policy recommendations to encourage this approach across the Mediterranean region.

This document was published in the framework of the Workshop « Implementation of Nature Based Solutions to tackle climate change » hosted by the City of Marseille from the 22nd to the 24th of January 2019, and organized by Plan Bleu, IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation, IUCN French Committee, Conservatoire du Littoral, Tour du Valat, MedWet and Wetlands International.