Sustainable agriculture and Nature-based Solutions

Sustainable agriculture and Nature-based Solutions

For biodiversity to thrive, we need a stable climate – and to keep the climate stable, one important element is keeping global biodiversity in a healthy state. This fundamental realization should run through all our thinking about nature and climate and underpin our determination to act strongly for climate and nature.

Our food system depends on biodiversity, clean water and air, and healthy soils. It cannot withstand an unstable climate. This means that long-term food security is profoundly dependent on the health of our environment, and that our social and economic goals will not be achieved if we continue to allow nature to decline.

The EU is strongly committed to a fair transition to sustainable food systems, and to a future that reconciles its food security, climate, biodiversity, and socio-economic objectives. That transformation will depend on joint solutions across sectors. The European Green Deal is a growth strategy for that process of change, delivering a sustainable future, where agricultural production and nature go hand in hand.

Nature-Based Solutions can bring a triple win to people – starting with farmers – to our planet and to our economy. With the adoption of the IUCN’s Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions for the agricultural sector, the world now has an important instrument to drive the concept forward and enable much wider uptake on the ground.

The report that follows helps highlight the immense potential of Nature-Based Solutions. By combining a rigorous theoretical analysis with real-world case studies, it offers concrete recommendations to policymakers and points farmers towards solutions that tackle environmental challenges and can be realistically implemented on the ground.

Solutions that bring us closer to the future we want: a stable climate, healthy biodiversity, and a food system firmly anchored in sustainability.

Source:

https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/CGFAS-001-En.pdf