People and Policy for Nature Based Solutions

All land and nature are subject (variably) to human dominion. Through history societies have developed increasingly sophisticated norms and institutions to mediate human-nature relations. However, the ongoing and increasingly stark nature-climate-pollution crises are fundamentally forcing society to think about how we work within and as part of nature and the planet to address these existential challenges. The emerging practice of nature-based solutions (NBS) has become an essential lens for understanding how nature and society can work collaboratively and synergistically to address shared challenges (albeit many of these challenges were created by human civilization). NBS do not emerge in pristine isolation from society, but are embedded within extant human social institutions, norms, and practices. It is essential to the mission of nature restoration to understand the dynamics of this socio-political foundation of NBS.This is the essence of socio-ecological studies and thinking, which are transforming ecological practice. Congruent with this understanding, there is a small but emergent literature around the socio-political conditions that determine NBS. This literature is increasingly being fueled by the EU Nature Restoration Law and a slew of other nature restoration laws and institutions being imagined and operationalized globally. There are, as yet, no dedicated spaces drawing together these insights and literature into the beginnings of a coherent corpus of literature: a lacuna that we seek to remedy in this Research Topic. In this collection, we want to draw upon global research about the politics and social dimensions that underpin and determine the development and/or implementation of NBS in its many guises, with special attention to critical, counterintuitive, and messy accounts of the practice of NBS in and around the social world.This Research Topic seeks contributions about how nature-based solutions to the nature-climate-pollution crises are embedded within, and are products of, socio-political and institutional systems of governance. We particularly recognize and seek manuscripts with empirical content that illuminate the global diversity of socio-ecological foundations of NBS practice. Manuscripts focusing on policy, institutions, instruments, administration, law, regulations, and organizations are particularly welcome, as are critical accounts of power asymmetries, injustice, and barriers to NBS practice. Topic editors: Duncan Russel Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86671/people-and-policy-for-nature-based-solutions