The last COP 15 saw a landmark recognition for the role of cities and local government actors towards reaching the 2030 biodiversity targets, according to a recent feature by ICLEI Cities Biodiversity Center. The Nature-based solutions (NbS) community has for a long time recognised this important connection between community action and mobilisation of efforts to increase biodiversity in cities.

GoGreenRoutes sees the commitment to biodiversity in its six Seedbed Cities as an important part of our work. To this end, several of our collaborators and partner and sister organisations were involved in the 7th Summit for Subnational Governments and Cities.

CLEVER Cities, Go Green Routes, Phusicos and URBINAT organised a side session on Cocreation of Nature-based Solutions for climate change at COP 15, outlining crucial aspects for co-creation and implementation of NbS to shape a common understanding of potential challenges. The session shared best approaches and tools to integrate and mainstream co-creation in strategic planning in cities and regions.

In addition to providing tools and resources to municipalities to accomplish this kind of co-creative work, a holistic and comprehensive approach is needed from all sectors to move towards the Global Biodiversity 2030 targets. Maria Carmen Garcia of MCG Research and Innovation reflects on her experiences at COP and her policy work on co-creation saying; “Life is complex. We are part of nature and we have to give back to nature with all the knowledge generated in different sectors to find these complex solutions in cities”.

Taking concrete action for biodiversity is better tackled in a larger network. A great place to begin is by checking out CitiesWithNature where you can see how different cities are committing concretely to global nature goals.

Additionally, you can learn more about nature based solutions and how they are co-created in this informational video created by Nature based Solutions Task Forces 4 and 6- NbS Communicators and Co-creation and Governance.