Returning to nature and seeking solutions

2022-01-10 0

The lessons of rewilding

Restoring what has been lost in the natural world holds answers to tackling the dual challenge of climate change and biodiversity loss. AECOM’s Chris White looks at the lessons being learnt from rewilding projects in the Scottish Highlands and San Diego’s backcountry in southern California.

The impact of climate change has been felt in the number of extreme weather events around the world that many of us have experienced — from record heatwaves resulting in destructive and sometimes deadly wildfires to severe floods. These are not one- offs: a landmark study released this summer by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said hotter temperatures are here to stay.

68% Biodiversity decline globally in population sizes across all species between 1970 and 2016.

This means severe weather events will happen more frequently, its scientists predict.

Exacerbating these impacts, manmade damage to natural habitat is causing a biodiversity crisis. The Living Planet Report 2020, by the World Wide Fund for Nature and Zoological Society of London, warned that biodiversity was “crashing,” with a 68 percent decline globally in population sizes across all species between 1970 and 2016.

According to data from the United Nations Development Programme, worldwide natural capital — our stock of renewable or non-renewable natural resources — has declined by almost 40 percent per person since the early 1990s. But it’s hard to put a value on our natural habitats until they become damaged or degraded, when it suddenly becomes clear that their contribution — the natural capital they hold — is priceless.

Part of the answer to these twin crises may already exist — in nature. If we look to rainforests and peat bogs, for example, they draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it. Getting the mix of vegetation right has been shown to keep wildfires manageable. Importantly, such nature-based solutions tackle both climate change and loss of biodiversity at the same time.

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