Trends in Frontier Tech: Nature Based Solutions
This year, the Frontier Technologies Program ran its sixth call for applications for pilots. We received 110 applications from FCDO staff in 33 different countries interested in testing new solutions. This post is the first in a series of four that shares key trends from those applications.
What are nature based solutions?
Nature-based solutions (NBS) use the power of nature to tackle social and environmental challenges. Solutions are not necessarily new and often draw on local and traditional knowledge. They can span a wide range of practices that broadly fall into four categories: forestry practices, wetland-related conservation and restoration, restorative agriculture, and ocean-based practices. Solutions can have a range of goals, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, removing CO2 from the atmosphere, improving food security and biodiversity or building resilience against natural risks and disasters.
Trends from Call 6
For our sixth call, 10% of the applications we received had an NBS component. The predominant emphasis for Call 6 applications was delivering solutions for carbon capture. Including through restoring mangroves, planting trees on farmland, and farming seaweed. Almost all NBS applications contained a livelihoods component and identified how the solution would deliver value to local communities.
One approach that appeared across multiple applications was innovative uses of the waste products of nature. For example, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) solutions is an approach that uses the waste by-products of fish production to grow carbon-capturing species such as kelp and shellfish and remove harmful waste and nutrients from the ecosystem.
Where’s the Nature Based Solutions frontier? Using sensors, and data to unlock pathways to scale
In a previous blog post we discussed how ‘frontier’ applications of technology are experimental, search for the greatest impact, and look to solve problems in new ways. A number of the NBS applications we received for Call 6 sought to deliver impact in new ways, by combining NBS with sensor technologies to unlock new opportunities for scaling solutions.
This includes our Call 6 pilot: Mangrove Aquaculture for Sustainable Marine Livelihoods, which aims to use satellite imagery and sensors to monitor mangrove ecosystems in Mozambique. This pilot intends to develop a digital platform through which bivalve farmers can sell their produce to buyers. Monitoring data on mangrove growth and protection will provide buyers with traceable assurance that the bivalves were produced in an environmentally sustainable way. The solution will also provide the Local Managed Marine Area Network (who look after the wider ecosystem) with the ability to sell carbon credits.
Another Call 6 pilot aims to use sensor technology to enable access to carbon markets. This pilot will use satellite imagery and GPS technology to generate verifiable data on carbon capture from smallholder farms in Uganda. Currently, it isn’t cost effective to verify carbon capture from tree growth on smallholder farms, precluding farmers from accessing carbon credit markets. Through using technology, the pilot will automate the data collection and verification process and enable farmers to access markets.
Data can also unlock other opportunities for NBS. As this recent paper from the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction outlines, new sensing and data modelling technologies can create new opportunities for sharing the benefits of NBS innovations with decision makers. In the case of disaster risk management, environmental data from sensors in coastal ecosystems might be combined with socio-economic data to inform flood risk modelling. This modelling could deliver credible cost-benefit analyses for implementing risk-reducing NBS approaches. New data and modeling tools could therefore help create new incentives for policy and financial decision makers to invest in NBS solutions.
The ‘‘frontier at the frontier’’: Delivering equitable and sustainable impact
In addition to sharing frontier approaches to delivering NBS, Call 6 applications shared a range of key considerations for implementing NBS for the greatest social and environmental impact.
While new technologies and datasets create opportunities for the scaling of NBS, these approaches present their own risks. This includes the risk of leaving behind those who are more vulnerable, geographically remote, or digitally illiterate. In this context, the frontier for NBS is not simply about testing whether carbon markets might provide a viable route to scale (something that is already well evidenced). Instead, the frontier involves testing what is needed from new approaches and business models to ensure solutions reduce inequalities and avoid harm.
Equally, the frontier for testing and scaling NBS solutions should involve co-designing solutions with local stakeholders, and indigenous communities with knowledge on what approaches best deliver sustainable environmental impact. Simply following market led opportunities for scaling of NBS, even with the best intentions, can present its own unintended consequences. Including incentive structures which encourage afforestation with non-native trees — a practice which can lead to monocultures, and ‘maladaptation’ rather than bio-diversity based resilience.
Our Call 6 pilots aim to generate learning around what is needed for their solutions to deliver equitable impact and deliver longer term environmental sustainability and resilience. The pilot working on Mangrove Aquaculture in Mozambique will work directly with community members with low literacy and digital skills. It aims to provide more vulnerable groups with access to new income generating opportunities. Our pilot working on carbon capture from smallholder farms in Uganda will work with the poorest households, otherwise overlooked by existing carbon credit markets. It will also investigate how best to ensure farmers using the platform plant the right trees to support biodiversity.
We hope that you enjoyed this post. In our next post in this series we’ll be sharing insights relating to Electric Mobility Innovations.
