Integrated management for the conservation of Mediterranean wetlands: Economics of Nature-based Solutions

Despite the multiple benefits of NbS and their positive socio-economic benefits, those solutions remain too little implemented. Our aim is to upscale the uptake of NbS, by targeting directly policy decision makers, businesses and both public and private investors demonstrating the concrete implications of NbS on the ground and from a socioeconomic perspective. As a complement, we provide the tools to measure and assess NbS benefits and costs through a cost-benefit approach to argue for incentives in favor of NbS implementation by promoting the economic stakes of those actions.

Those guidelines consists of two parts:

• Part I is a state of the art on the implementation of Nature-based Solutions and their key operationalization challenges, from a global perspective with a focus on economic features for coastal wetlands.
• Part II is a handbook for a socioeconomic and environmental assessment of Nature-based Solutions.

NB : This second part comprises the public version of the toolkit. For full guidance and/or support in NbS socio-economic assessment, please get directly in touch with us at the following link : click here

This publication was released in the frame of the two years MAVA foundation project. It addressed the questions: How to operationalize the uptake of Nature-based Solutions in decision-making processes? How to assess NbS socio-economic benefits to enhance their upscale in the Mediterranean?

In this framework, Vertigo Lab, BirdLife, IUCN, MEDSEA, SEO/BirdLife received MAVA Foundation’s support for key missions, with the aim of making knowledge and NbS more concrete for decision-makers:

• TESSA Toolkit review: modules to reinforce the methodology with our knowledge and experience on ecosystem services assessment,
• Conservation practitioners support in ecosystem services, NbS assessment and Cost-benefit analysis: a continuous training for two partners managing coastal sites in Sardinia (MEDSEA) and in Spain in Bahia de Cadiz (SEO/BirdLife),
• Capitalization on the experience: guidelines and handbook establishment to draw conclusions and a concrete pledge on the economic opportunity of NbS and their economic assessment methodology.

In parallel, a series of webinars were organized in collaboration with the partners. It aimed to share experience and enhance a diversity of stakeholders in NbS assessment to support their implementation.