The European Urban Resilience Forum is a hallmark event hosted annually by ICLEI Europe and European Environmental Agency, which gatehrs a wide variety of stakeholders to catalyse action on urban resilience. The 2021 edition was recently held in a hybrid format, taking place online and in ICLEI Member Malmö (Sweden), supported by a number of co-organisers including NetworkNature, which supports the nature-based solutions community maximise impact.

The NetworkNature session held on 19 October saw city representatives from both ICLEI Members Malmö (Sweden) and Lisbon (Portugal) discuss the crucial topic of fostering ecosystem and climate resilience, together with panellists working on implementing and financing nature-based solutions, in order to future-proof cities and address the climate crisis.

Malmö has been actively introducing green spaces and sustainable districts to attract citizens, with nature-based solutions at the forefront. They have also found infrastructure can support ecosystem restoration, as is with the case of the bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen creating a habitat for blue mussels, which were scarce in the waters before the bridge was introduced. Lisbon has found citizen awareness and engagement key for successful greening schemes, coupled with political action.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that citizens accept and desire nature in cities. However, there needs to be a more holistic view in the implementation of nature-based solutions to ensure that they are accepted as part of a wider scheme – the ecosystem – and not merely as controlled interventions in cities. It is difficult to capture the compounded benefits of nature-based solutions and thus argue for financing. A multisector approach to investment planning should be incorporated to channel more funding for nature-based solutions. It is also crucial to get people from different fields and approaches to collaborate to ensure the success of nature-based solutions to build climate resilience and protect the ecosystem.

Bettina Wilk, NetworkNature coordinator and Senior Officer at ICLEI Europe, called for a multifaceted approach in the planning of nature-based solutions. The strength of nature-based solutions is that they address many things, from ecosystem resilience, biodiversity, climate change mitigation, all of with have a direct impact on human health. There is a need to design nature-based solutions as a wider strategic network of green- and blue infrastructure – using a system based approach that can be transferred to cities as a whole.

For a more in-depth recap, visit NetworkNature.eu.