Engaging: Growing-Extending-Marketing
‘Engaging: Growing-Extending-Marketing’ will focus on communication, stakeholder engagement and dissemination of project results. They will secure long-term impacts for the project by using a combination of innovative approaches to engage stakeholders in sharing inspiration, knowledge, skills and processes of nature-based solutions.
Partners:
Oppla, ICLEI, The University of Sheffield, European Urban Knowledge Network, Barcelona Regional Agència Metropolitana de Desenvolupament Urbanístic i d'Infraestructures, S.A., Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Grupo Verde/ LALI, Ministerium für Umwelt Landwirtschaft Natur- und Verbraucherschutz des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen
Objectives:
Identify and engage key actors and audiences, to increase the uptake of nature-based solutions to restore urban ecosystems, developing an open route for stakeholders to join the project.
Communicate project-specific and wider understandings of nature-based solutions and their benefits in different contexts and across scales.
Assist stakeholders, actors and future actors in building their own capacity to develop nature-based solutions.
‘Engaging: Growing-Extending-Marketing’ will:
Deliver increasing levels of skills connected with nature-based solutions
Engage future nature based solutions professionals and local people (including civil society, investors and municipalities staff) in co-creation of nature-based solutions
Inspire changes to curricula and technical assistance towards urban nature-based solutions.
Nature-based solutions are often peripheral to stakeholders' thinking and decision making does not always include social or environmental considerations. Calls for more investment in nature-based solutions are often met with demands for better evidence of the links between investment and specific outcomes, or where intervention will lead to savings elsewhere in the system. CONEXUS is integral to getting our nature-based solutions message across. It will further develop the pioneering OPPLA nature-based solutions knowledge repository to share practices and evidence with the world. It will provide better evidence to maximise capacity to restore ecosystems in diverse, dynamic settings and promoting innovative nature-based solutions to address global challenges.
Bridging Worlds: Decolonising Nature-Based Solutions Education
This essay embarks on a transformative journey, exploring the integration of decolonial approaches into Nature-based Solutions (NbS) professional education. It delves into the rich tapestry of indigenous, local, and marginalized knowledge systems, challenging the colonial underpinnings that have shaped our interactions with nature. Inspired by the teachings of Antonio Bispo dos Santos and other black and indigenous decolonial activists, it calls for a revaluation of NbS education, urging a shift towards a philosophy of “buen vivir” — living well together in a community that includes the Earth and all its beings. This text sets the stage for a profound transformation in NbS education, advocating for justice and acknowledging the historical injustices that underpin our current relationship with the natural world. Below is the accompanying report.
Bridging Worlds
Crafting Future-Ready NbS Curricula for Global Sustainability and Justice
This report addresses the current competency and skill gaps among Nature-based Solutions (NbS) professionals, by proposing a set of impactful experiential and inclusive curricula approaches to higher education and professional training providers in Europe and Latin America. It proposes a NbS professional education curriculum, which encourages participatory learning, where students and professionals engage directly with communities to co-create solutions that are culturally appropriate, ecologically sustainable, and socially just. It calls for re-evaluating and reshaping the pedagogical frameworks, content, and practices to acknowledge and incorporate the rich diversity of knowledge systems, especially those of indigenous and local communities. Above is the associated essay that accompanies the report.
Conexus Key Learning Factsheet Series
Skills Gaps for Nature- based Solutions uptake in Europe and Latin America
Skill gaps hindering the implementation of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are often pointed out as a challenge to larger scale NbS uptake. This factsheet presents the findings and key messages of an explorative study on skills and competence gaps among NbS professionals. Moreover, it introduces the discussion on linking curricula development and pedagogic approaches.
Conexus policy briefs series
The Conexus policy brief series have been co-produced with the Conexus life-labs to reflect the learning and understanding that the Conexus project enabled, developing and sharing knowledge and how this can embed nature-based solutions into policy responses:
