Insights from Oxford University: Turning to Nature at a Time of Upheaval

This material is intended as general market commentary, and not intended to be a forecast of future events, or guarantee of future results or investment advice. The opinions expressed are those of Nathalie Seddon, Professor of Biodiversity for Department of Zoology, Director of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative, The University of Oxford, as of June 17, 2020, and may differ from those of other J.P. Morgan employees and affiliates. This material should not be regarded as research or as a J.P. Morgan Research Report. Nothing in this material shall be considered a solicitation to buy or an offer to sell securities, other investments or services to any person in any jurisdiction where such an offer, solicitation, purchase or sale would be unlawful under the laws of such jurisdiction. Any mention of an individual security, investment or strategy is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as a recommendation. Outlooks and past performance are not guarantees of future results.

[00:00:00.94] JEAN SUNG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our discussion on nature-based solutions, and that nature based solutions are not really just about helping nature, they're about helping people. We are delighted to have with us today a subject expert on nature, biodiversity, and climate change. Professor Nathalie Seddon's research focuses on understanding the value and limits of working with nature to address societal challenges, and how best to increase the influence of robust science on the design and implementation of public policy. Professor Seddon is also the founder of Nature-based Solutions Initiative, a program of interdisciplinary research, policy advice, and education aimed at bringing the equitable protection of nature to the center of the sustainable development agenda. Nature-based solutions can safeguard communities from extreme weather or humanitarian threats, protect people and nature, slow global warming, and help strengthen our economies.

[00:01:16.66] So let's begin our discussion with Professor Seddon on what are some real possibilities that our population can implement and benefit from nature-based solutions. Good afternoon, Nathalie. Thank you so much for joining us today. What does, really, nature-based solutions mean? Where did it come from, or how did it come from? And is it necessary or effective for people and to nature? We would love for you to help us understand more and define what this means.

[00:01:52.78] NATHALIE SEDDON: OK, thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you very much for the opportunity to join this conversation today and to share with you some views on nature-based solutions to global challenges.

[00:02:06.87] So of course human beings across the globe have been working with nature in countless ways for millennia, to deal with climatic variability, to help them with the production of food, and so forth. But it's only really recently that this idea or the concept of nature-based solutions has been gaining such a lot of traction politically, in the United Nations and many governments across the world, as having the potential to provide a triple win for people, nature, and for climate.

[00:02:36.22] And I'm just going to share my screen now, to show a diagram just to explain a little bit more what we mean now by this term, nature-based solutions. So, OK, that works. So here we go.

[00:02:51.52] So basically nature based solutions involve balls working with and enhancing natural systems to address societal goals, whether that's climate change, food insecurity, issues with water, disaster risk reduction, mental and physical health, whatever it is. And it's grounded in the robust knowledge from both science and traditional knowledge and Indigenous knowledge that healthy, well-managed ecosystems produce many things which we need, and many things on which human well-being depends, whether that's clean air, clean water, protections from storms, floods, damages, storing carbon, underpinning food security, and so on.

[00:03:32.80] Now, this framing is rather a new one. Those of us working in the area of nature conservation and biodiversity conservation have long been used to thinking that nature is very vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and all the other things that human beings do to the planet. But in this framing, we really see nature as an ally, as perhaps one of our greatest allies in a rapidly-changing world. But of course the extent to which nature can bring all these benefits to people very much depends on how we implement nature-based solutions.

[00:04:04.41] So you asked me for some sort of specific examples. So I'll just put one more slide up here to adjust that. So here is sort of four broad categories of nature-based solutions that I generally talk about. One of them involves bringing green and blue-- so natural and water-based-- infrastructure into urban landscapes to improve the resilience of those landscapes. So by this I mean green roofs, green walls, expanding the areas of wetlands within the city, planting trees, and so forth. And there is lots of evidence that these can help with cooling during the heatwaves, that these can really help abate and mitigate the damage caused by floods, whilst also these types of innovations can reduce air pollution and provide a whole suite of many major health benefits, both physical and mental health benefits.

[00:04:58.02] And of course, China has been leading the way on this for many years. And I'm thinking in particular of its Sponge Cities program. So there are 30 sponge cities-- or there are going to be 30 sponge cities in China across 16 districts. And this is really bringing in nature into cities to increase their resilience, particularly to increase the flood resilience of those cities, but also to bring, as I say, all these other benefits. So that's a major example, nature-based solutions for dealing with the problems that we face in cities.

[00:05:26.70] Another broad type of nature-based solution involves protecting the ecosystems that we have, the natural ecosystems, whether grasslands, or forests, or wetlands, or restoring them. And there's, again, a lot of evidence from all over the world, including a great deal from China, that doing this can help secure and regulate water supplies, can protect infrastructure and communities from flood, soil erosion, and landslides, whilst also drawing down carbon, so helping to slow climate change as well, and bringing health benefits. And there's a lot of work that's been done, for example, in the Loess Plateau in China.

[00:05:59.49] And then, all over the world, we see examples of people working with their coastal ecosystems. So obviously, under climate change, we're seeing increasing cyclones, increasing damage from sea level rise and so on, saltwater kind of coming in and ruining agricultural land, and so on. However, in those areas where mangroves, or salt marshes, or other coastal ecosystems-- kelp forests, for example-- are restored and well looked after, then they can deliver all these benefits to those coastal infrastructure and communities. They can reduce the damages caused by storms, and so on.

[00:06:31.81] And then the fourth example is in the agricultural contexts in rural areas. And we see techniques like agroforestry, where you can plant trees among crops, or you put crops among trees. And there's great evidence from all over the world, lots in sub-Saharan Africa, for example and across Southeast Asia, where this can basically maintain or even enhance crop yields in a drier or at least a more variable climate. So those are some examples.

[00:07:04.04] I can't hear you, unfortunately.

[00:07:10.52] JEAN SUNG: Get myself unmuted.

[00:07:12.25] NATHALIE SEDDON: OK, I can hear you now. Brilliant. [CHUCKLES]

[00:07:15.04] JEAN SUNG: [INAUDIBLE] some kind of method that we can use nature-based solutions in cities. You also talk about some possible good things that we can embrace into planning an urban city. We do see a lot of tree-planting. Maybe it's not always useful. But I also hear from your slide that there's a lot of work that's been done in rural areas, from farming, to fishery, mangroves, et cetera. In a city, what would nature-based solutions be most beneficial to? What kind of industries? And how could business people be looking at nature-based solutions to help them plan their businesses or plan their buildings or plan cities?

[00:08:12.27] NATHALIE SEDDON: Well, there's lots of reasons why bringing nature into cities is such a good idea. I mean, most of the global population will be living in cities by the end of the century. We need these cities to be resilient. We don't know what's coming in terms of change. We know that a lot of change is coming, but it's very hard to predict exactly what form that will take. And some areas will experience severe heatwaves and severe droughts. And they're particularly intense within cities. So we are having a lot of increased human mortality across the globe during heatwaves as we get warmer and warmer every year. And as I say, you get this heat island effect. So cities are particularly affected by that.

[00:08:50.29] But then other cities-- and I know that China has had a lot of problems with flooding. There was a big 2012 flood which really sharpened awareness across the country as to the importance of sort of designing cities in a different way. We need to change how we do things. We need to change our idea of what a city is. And there's great beauty and inspiration to be found in imagining these very beautiful green and blue cities that are permeable, that allow water and nature to flow through them whilst also sustaining healthy, happy populations.

[00:09:25.83] So there's various reasons why it's a good idea. So on a practical basis, it can really lower the impact on infrastructure, on buildings, on valuable property in the city centers. It can lower the impacts of flooding on those. So there's a real incentive for businesses to engage in nature-based solutions because it reduces the impact on their assets. It protects their assets, and also protects their supply chains and so forth.

[00:09:49.90] And similarly, we spend a lot-- and companies spend a lot-- on extremely expensive air conditioning, for example. Air conditioning not only is very hungry in terms of fossil fuel consumption and energy consumption, whereas there is a way of designing buildings and there is a way of designing cities where you get lots of natural cooling, not just from the way the buildings are constructed, but also because they are interconnected with nature. You have green walls within buildings. You have open spaces, but within them, air can flow through.

[00:10:20.22] So it's really sort of thinking about it in that sort of, how can we work with nature other than sticking a machine in a building to cool it down? Let's have it cooled down naturally. You're using some ancient principles about how to work with nature in the working space. So in a rapidly-warming, very rapidly-changing world, there's lots of practical reasons why you'd want to bring nature in.

[00:10:41.82] But then there's also the whole piece around making beautiful spaces that make people happy. And we now know that there is lots of fantastic evidence that exposure to parks, to having green spaces around where you live, in your offices, and especially green spaces in and around schools has a huge impact on mental health. So there was a study conducted in the UK looking at 900,000 young people, pre-teenagers, and controlling for all sorts of socioeconomic factors and lifestyle factors. But they were looking at-- the single strongest predictor of whether or not those young people developed mental health issues was whether or not they'd had exposure to nature, had some connection to nature. So that made happier workforces and more productive. So from that side, there's just so many reasons why sort of bringing nature into work spaces, into living spaces, is very important.

[00:11:39.58] And it's not just-- you know, it's something that we've had an intuition about for a long time, but now the science is actually very clear. And again, it's not just about showing correlations, we also understand a bit more about the neurophysiology, the mechanisms in our brains, what happens to our bodies when we go into nature. Everything slows down. Those brain chemicals that make us feel happy go up. So the science is all there to support [INAUDIBLE]. So yeah.

[00:12:06.69] JEAN SUNG: OK, so are you saying that architects, engineers, they know some of the nature-based solutions of cooling or greening methods?

[00:12:22.06] NATHALIE SEDDON: Yes.

[00:12:22.29] JEAN SUNG: As an ordinary man on the street, so I live in the city, I work in a building, is there something that an individual can embrace that could be classified as a nature-based solution?

[00:12:38.34] NATHALIE SEDDON: Well, in terms of implementing nature-based solutions, there are lots of initiatives now where you as an individual can contribute to, for example, tree-planting programs or to greening schools programs. In Europe, at least, there are some initiatives whereby, as a city dweller, you can actually get involved, say, with your family to actually restore the ecosystem in your cities and around your city.

[00:13:01.35] And that not only has the benefit of actually increasing green space, but actually the process of joining in with, say, tree-planting missions is actually very good for people as well. It reconnects them to nature and with each other. And that's all part of the kind of the change that we need to do that. So as an individual, those are important things to do. Obviously there are lots of things that we individuals should be doing to enable a sustainable pathway for humans. But that's slightly different. And that involves treating nature with more respect. So that's not so much a nature-based solution. That's just about treating nature with respect and taking it into account when we make our consumer choices-- deciding to buy things that don't cost nature so much and that have greener supply chains and so on.

[00:13:45.89] JEAN SUNG: OK. So we said earlier on that nature-based solutions isn't just about helping nature or protecting nature, but it's really protecting people. So we spoke earlier about some possibilities if we were living in an urban area. But what about if terrible weather comes along? And in Asia we suffer a lot. We have typhoons. I think the Philippines has 150 typhoons every year. We have floodings in India and in China as well.

[00:14:23.36] What are some of the examples that you have seen that have been implemented in East Asia that's been successful and maybe can be replicated in other parts of the world?

[00:14:38.11] NATHALIE SEDDON: Well, there's a lot of evidence from across from across the world, and perhaps especially from the regions that you mentioned, whereby communities and infrastructure that has been behind a nice belt of coastal wetlands-- and in particular I'm thinking-- well, two marine or coastal habitats are extremely important in this regard. One is the coastal wetlands, like mangroves. And then the other are coral reefs or oyster reefs.

[00:15:05.96] And on one hand-- so I'll get back to your specific question in a second-- but on the one hand, we have a lot of evidence now that those communities that are protected by those ecosystems suffer a lot less damage a lot less damage to their properties, a lot lower levels of mortality during cyclones.

[00:15:24.22] So for example cyclone Amphan that recently hit the Bay of Bengal, which is one of the strongest if not the strongest cyclones to hit that region since records began, and basically Bangladesh and India have the Sundarbans, which is the largest area of mangrove forests in the world. And there was basically very, very little damage to property and very little loss of life in the communities that were protected by those ecosystems. And then when you look at the Philippines, for example, every year, nearly a million people-- it's like 600,000, 700,000 people and about $1 billion worth of property are protected by mangroves. Now, if more mangroves were to be restored, then obviously those figures get higher and higher.

[00:16:10.69] And the key thing about those ecosystems-- you could say, well, why don't we just build a big seawall and protect people instead? And in many parts of the world, that's what's happening. Big, expensive, great infrastructural projects, big seawalls, levees, all these kinds of things, very high-tech solutions to some of these threats, go in. Now, those might be effective in the short term. But over the long term, they get damaged and they can't replenish. Now the thing about natural climate solutions is that plants grow. Of course something like the Sundarbans during Cyclone Amphan was very badly damaged, but it wasn't damaged beyond repair. And over the years, that ecosystem will self-repair, will regenerate, and will be able to continue providing storm damage benefits. Whereas we can't yet build sea defenses that can kind of adapt, or evolve, and change, and regrow. So that's one of the important things.

[00:17:02.92] The other important thing about using these nature-based solutions in this particular context is that they don't just provide storm protection services. They also draw down phenomenal amounts of carbon dioxide. So, say, with the mangrove forests, of which you have a lot in your region, are basically the big carbon powerhouses of the planet. They pull in 40 times more carbon dioxide as they grow than forests inland, for example. So in terms of trying to slow warming, we also need to invest in these coastal ecosystems.

[00:17:37.33] And then, perhaps even more importantly, in terms of local communities, these coastal ecosystems are also the basis of food chains, of massively important fisheries. For example, the roots in the mangrove systems provide nursery grounds for all the fish that form the basis of the economically-important fish species offshore. So they provide livelihoods and are very important to the economy. So there's all these reasons why. So it's not just a seawall that protects you, it's a living ecosystem that is essentially the life support system for the local communities and also for the planet. So there are these multiple reasons.

[00:18:14.15] But I want to be very clear that sometimes we need both human technology and we need nature. And sometimes the threats that we face are so severe that we need both. The green needs to protect the gray. The gray needs to protect the green. They can work together. So it's not about saying green is the only solution. It's just like saying we need to consider nature-based solutions because they can bring so much more and can complement our technology.

[00:18:38.00] JEAN SUNG: And how do we convince people of-- so I'm a farmer or I'm a fisherman and I live in some of these areas, how do I get to know all the science? How do I know that by protecting the mangroves or if we plant trees between the crops, it's better than just willy-nilly trees everywhere? How do we get that education to the person-- to the farmer, to the fisherman-- that this is a good way. Not only it protects your livelihood, but it protects many generations to come. And it's actually going to protect your lives, protect your families. How do we get that get that education across to these rural communities where education may be spotty or even inadequate?

[00:19:30.76] NATHALIE SEDDON: That's a really good question but the reality is a lot of these techniques are ancient techniques. A lot of these communities or at least parts of these communities already know all this. They have been working-- you know, technology is relatively new for some of these regions. And actually some of these communities have been working with nature. They've worked out themselves, without any scientist or government agency telling them what to do-- they've already worked out, over generations, that if they plant some trees among their crops, then the crops are shaded, or the trees bring in birds that will eat pests. They've already worked all this out. And actually a lot of our understanding and a lot of the understanding underpinning the concept in nature-based solutions is rooted in that Indigenous knowledge. So in some parts of the world that's already there.

[00:20:14.35] The challenge is bringing the evidence together and enabling the sharing of that among the communities. Because across the globe, you have some communities that have been dealing with change and challenges for as long as they've existed. They just live in those parts of the world where variability is their normal. So they live in a part of the world where some years might be dry, some years might be wet. And so they already have that. And that's really important information that we don't want to lose. Whereas other parts of the world-- and arguably I live in one of those-- we've had fairly constant conditions.

[00:20:46.75] And our whole system of agriculture and everything that we do is based on the expectation that, from one year to the next, it's going to be pretty similar. Of course that's all changing. And that's not the case. And so we actually need to learn from these other communities that have been dealing with that variability.

[00:21:02.63] And so there's a lot of work. And we're involved in some of this work at the Nature-based Solutions Initiative. It is bringing that knowledge together and then sharing it. And we can share it through technology, through apps. So there's some great work on how do we get the communication going so that, for example, communities in Colombia that are really acing mangrove restoration can communicate with communities in Bangladesh who will, perhaps, learn from their knowledge. And so to create these networks of knowledge-sharing is very, very important.

[00:21:30.71] But then obviously another very important thing is building capacity in governments-- local governments, national governments-- enhancing their awareness of what works when it comes to nature, and then having them invest in those sort of local programs to share that knowledge and improve it.

[00:21:46.67] But I would say that, in a rapidly-changing world, we're all learning all the time. And so as everything changes, we might find new ways. We might innovate. So there's a lot of scope for innovation as well, and bringing techniques from different parts of the world to new regions to try and build that resilience. Ultimately this is all about building resilience in our cities and in our landscapes. And knowledge-sharing and enabling knowledge-sharing is really important. And we're really, really actively involved in that in Oxford.

[00:22:16.78] JEAN SUNG: Yes, absolutely. I guess, in a way, if I think about nature and if I think about the current pandemic, in the rural areas, if I may, as naive as it may sound, the numbers of infected people are lower. And I've also read recently that people now think, maybe I should go and live in the country because I'll be surrounded by more open land. Like you said earlier, we seem to be happier when we are with trees, in a park, children go out to play. So there's a great relevance in the human body needing to be with nature.

[00:22:56.26] Is there any correlation, if we were better versed in nature-based solutions, if we were more respectful of our nature, could we really protect people, or could we try and protect people, or reduce the risk and improve our resiliency to future pandemics or future diseases such as COVID?

[00:23:20.62] NATHALIE SEDDON: Yes, absolutely. And we are living in a very extraordinary time. And it has been devastating for many, but it is also a massive opportunity for us to learn on how do we accelerate? How do we get to where we know now we need to go? And so we're grateful in many ways for the perspectives that this moment offers us. And we have to make most of those and counteract all the suffering that has resulted.

[00:23:45.92] But undoubtedly it is our disruption, our degradation, our disrespect for the natural world that has caused this situation and is the cause, will be the cause of future pandemics. And there will be more. And we have to work out how to reduce the frequency of those events and reduce the impact of them.

[00:24:05.87] And clearly, if we implement nature-based solutions-- so if we protect the biodiversity that we have and the ecosystems that we have, if we restore as much of what we've lost as we can, if we manage our landscapes much more carefully and create these very resilient landscapes where we don't have to use so many chemicals, where we don't have to use pesticides, and fertilizers, and all those things that drain the soil, if we look after our landscapes more, then it's much less likely that a virus like COVID-19 will make the jump from wild animals such as bats to humans via other animals.

[00:24:44.48] So we're still trying to work out exactly what happened with COVID-19. And I'm not an expert, as you know, on that. But it's clear that if we respect nature-- so we don't illegally trade animals and keep them in very poor condition so that they themselves get sick, and can pass on that illness to us, if we don't do that, and if we maintain very healthy, biodiverse ecosystems, those ecosystems are more resilient to pests and pathogens themselves. So it's much less likely that a new disease would emerge like that, and less likely that a new disease would then make the jump to humans.

[00:25:20.81] And then the other piece is, of course, how does an emerging disease like that, just in a few people, how does it become a global pandemic? Well, that in itself is rooted in our normalization of intense international travel. It's very, very clear, if you see the maps, about how this spread. It was all the flying. And we have normalized very high levels of international flying. And of course that's bad for the climate, causes climate change. And it's clearly bad in terms of spreading diseases around the world.

[00:25:48.88] And so clearly we're going to need to continue to travel internationally. And we have those many, many benefits of globalization. But we have to make sure we can justify every flight that we take, and we offset the damage that that very-necessary journey has taken, for example, by investing in good, nature-based solutions.

[00:26:09.17] So you'll be aware there's a lot of discourse about how to offset my flight. You know, offsetting it-- so if I use up this much carbon when I fly, I'll make sure that gets invested in nature. And we just have to make sure that those offsetting programs are good ones. So when I mean good ones, I mean that this is about protecting diverse ecosystems, community-led projects that really benefit people and biodiversity, and being careful there.

[00:26:32.03] Because I think there's this meme at the moment out there that it's OK to carry on flying or to carry on burning fossil fuels so long as you plant a few trees. And that's not the case at all. So we need to be careful about making those calculations, and be very careful about what we invest in to offset any necessary travel that we do.

[00:26:49.37] JEAN SUNG: Yes. We had an earlier conversation with another professor from Oxford who actually talked about [INAUDIBLE] on the carbon emissions. And it's not really, again, just about reducing, it's how do we store it, how do we actually get it from the natural resources, and the responsibility.

[00:27:10.97] So this actually brings me, looking at your background, a little bit more personal from, really, the people point of view. So when we go to the supermarket today, we see natural this, natural that. Everything is supposedly natural or nature, I guess, where it comes from. Are there natural and nature-based solutions that's been applied to our food so we don't have to feel insecure about our food? To our water-- you know, we have filtered water. We have sparkling water. So if nature-based solutions was more effective, could we just drink from the tap? Or could we just drink from a river? Can we just eat the normal supply of food, or chicken, or eggs, or vegetables?

[00:28:05.29] Because you're right, with all the pesticides that we have put in to engineer food-- how can all strawberries look the same from some countries? Are they perfect? Or perfect tomatoes. So there's some form of engineering.

[00:28:22.91] Have you seen any nature-based solutions that's actually, instead of compromising the food production, it actually gave us what nature intended us to have.

[00:28:38.43] NATHALIE SEDDON: So absolutely. I mean, the accessibility to products that have been produced without harming nature or in fact have been produced by enhancing nature, obviously it varies a lot across the globe. And in certain very privileged parts of the world, it's easy to get hold of those items. And if you're wealthy enough to be able to afford them, then that's great. And there are those options for food products that have a low carbon impact and that have a low environmental impact because they've been produced, for example, in agroforestry systems-- so tea, and chocolate, and coffee can be produced in a way that doesn't destroy tropical rainforests and that encourages biodiversity. And there are many communities all over the world that are producing commodities without harming the environment, or having very low impact anyway.

[00:29:27.45] As you say, in order to produce vast amounts of food for vast and ever-growing numbers of people, then you do have a lot of technology involved, a lot of chemicals involved. And people working in food production systems will say, we cannot feed 7 and 1/2 billion, 8 billion people without doing that. So it is very, very tricky. But there are various issues that need to be addressed. And one is massively reducing food waste. We might pour all these chemicals and massively produce amounts of food, produce enormous amounts of food, but most of it gets wasted. So that said, people-- and I'm not one of them, but people working in that area are doing very important work, in my opinion, how do we reduce food waste.

[00:30:07.08] But then it's also food production-- and globally, I would say, that a move away from meat-eating and a move towards plant-based diets is very important because it just takes up a lot of land, and therefore takes away from nature. So the more meat we produce, the less able we will be to restore our natural ecosystems, to protect the ecosystems that we've got. So there needs to be-- now, obviously, a shift to a plant-based diet isn't appropriate in some cultures. And so you have to respect that. But for those of us who have choices, we need to eat meat less. And that will have a very, very, very big impact on biodiversity, on ecosystems, on climate, and on planetary health. We can't have a meat-based diet for 8 billion people. We'd need a very big planet, much bigger than the one we've got, to be able to sustain that. So clearly there needs to be change.

[00:30:58.17] And of course there are a whole load of very important health benefits of a shift towards a plant-based diet. So it makes sense for planetary health and it makes sense for human health. And again, that speaks to the core principles of nature-based solutions, which is about understanding that human health and planetary health, the health of our ecosystems and the health of our bodies, are one and the same. If we're doing something bad to the environment, inevitably we are doing something bad to our bodies. And it's sort of like these things are very interconnected. And there's lots of examples of that, and a growing appreciation, particularly among young people, that that is the case. So it's really important to think about that.

[00:31:37.87] And then one of the biggest things is that we just-- so even in areas, OK we need to produce meat in some areas, perhaps, we could just do it so much more efficiently than we do. There's so much waste in the system, mismanagement of our lands. And for example, from a climate-change point of view, actually, some of the biggest gains in terms of natural climate solutions to slow warming can [INAUDIBLE] from better managing our agricultural lands, better managing our livestocks so that they have less of an impact and produce more food more sustainably. So yeah, there's a lot there, and a lot of people doing very important work in that. Food is obviously a massively important thing. And how we produce our food and what we do with the waste of our food is a huge impact on the sustainability of humanity.

[00:32:20.68] JEAN SUNG: Yes. Well, we've heard also a third of our food is wasted before it even hits the supermarket shelves.

[00:32:28.29] NATHALIE SEDDON: Exactly, exactly. So we could do a lot better. You know, the systems that we have-- and I think what something like a pandemic shows, it shows where all these weak links are. You know, we had a food system which just assumes that nothing's going to go wrong, and has all this waste in it. And what we've seen now is that we can't afford that. And hopefully the-- I mean, I'm aware of some parts of the food industry are having a major rethink about even how they think about their supply chains. And we all need to do that in big and small ways.

[00:33:02.31] JEAN SUNG: I mean, I think that change requires, of course, the power of one. I love that saying, that each one of us can be responsible to make that change. But at the end of the day, is it not collaborative partnership between the private person, the private industry, or the private sector, and the academia, the social sector, the scientists, the nonprofits, working together? We can all do our bit. But we do need the public policy to support it and to say, oh, by the way, no plastic bags. Or, by the way-- and I don't think it will ever happen-- we can't eat meat on Mondays through Fridays or something like that. You can only have your roast on Sunday. I don't think that's going to happen.

[00:33:50.04] But if we really want to make some of these changes, like better city planning, urban planning, and to teach farmers and fishermen-- which they probably do know. Maybe they're teaching us new ways-- to be able to share it across continents, across cultures, we do need to work together collectively, in your experience, where have you seen that public sector really gung ho to make a change? I mean, I've heard that in Chile, for instance, when the governments say, no plastic bags, no throwing in the oceans, it happened. It just did it. So what would be some of the triggers if we were to make policy advancements that conforms with the human person?

[00:34:45.49] NATHALIE SEDDON: Well, there is a lot of change happening. And a lot of that is being motivated by the youth movement. So yes, and obviously it varies from country to country. And as you say, some countries are very quick-- nations are quite quick as a whole to adopt new things. And there's examples-- as you said, Chile is an example, and New Zealand, and a number of other countries where they've managed to very quickly change the normal. And we do need to quickly change normals around plastics, around waste, and all these things, consumer choices, flying as well.

[00:35:19.89] But whether or how, the routes by which you enable that change, vary from culture to culture. So there aren't general rules, I think, that apply to every culture on the planet. However, we are seeing, across the planet, these sort of unified movements. And I think the Youth for Climate movement obviously was really going strong before COVID. And I'm sure they'll be back.

[00:35:38.33] And I think that's a real recognition in young people across all different cultures of actually the injustice of environmental degradation, the injustice of climate change. They feel that they have had their futures taken away from them. Their option is that they're going to have to be dealing with this huge mess that previous generations have created for them. And they recognize that all the development gains of the 21st century are basically going to now be undermined by things like climate change, and global pandemics, and so forth, which is not part of-- they're not responsible for that. They're not responsible for clearing up that mess. And I don't think we should rely-- think, oh, everything's going to be OK because young people are coming and they're going to fix it. We obviously have to set in motion a whole load of massive, systemic change that will secure their future.

[00:36:20.83] So I think there's a lot of important work. And I think you've touched on a very important aspect of this, which is these sort of big, collaborative partnerships between the private sector, the public sector, between academia, practitioners. So for a while, for the longest time, we've all been working in silos. And we all recognize that we need to reach out beyond those silos. So for most of my career, I was warned against sort of becoming engaged with activists because I was a scientist.

[00:36:49.78] However, we know, broadly speaking, what we need to do now to secure humanity's future on this planet. I would argue that there's lots of important detail and nuance. But the broad things, we know. And it's like now is the time for, actually, scientists and activists to engage so that the activists are informed by the best available knowledge and for scientists to really understand what questions really need answering by policymakers and practitioners.

[00:37:16.09] And so this is one thing that we're creating in different parts of the world-- the Nature-based Solutions Initiative is-- what we're calling these Communities of Practice, which basically bring together people from the business community, people from practice, governments, with scientists. So everybody's at the table. And farmers are at the table. And community leaders are at the table. And it's like, OK, this is the problem that you face. What are the obstacles? What are the challenges? Is it knowledge? Maybe it is. Maybe we don't yet understand how to work with nature in this particular context.

[00:37:46.13] But oftentimes it's not about knowledge, it's about finance challenges. How do you incentivize ecosystem stewardship if it takes quite a long time for that ecosystem to reward you? How do you incentivize it? How do you mobilize good, sustainable finance to enable these types of actions on the ground?

[00:38:02.74] Sometimes it's about governance, because one of the challenges around nature-based solutions is that you need people from different ministries, like energy, and finance, and agriculture, and forestry. These are all these ministries that have been working in isolation from one another. But in order to scale up the nature-based solution, you need them all to speak to each other. You need to think about trans-boundary issues. You can't have a nature-based solution in India or in Bangladesh, for example, that doesn't also involve scaling up that same approach in all the adjacent countries. You need to have this whole political base. And that might be, that trans-boundary politics angle might actually-- maybe that's the biggest challenge. So let's focus on that.

[00:38:41.24] So again, we can't work in silos. We've got to all work together. And everybody realizes this now. But there are some important details there about how you actually make that happen. But you won't find out and you won't find the solutions unless you've got everybody around the table. And I think that's one of the powerful things about nature-based solutions is enabling those conversations and enabling, therefore, the systemic change that we need in how we run our institutions and how we make decisions in order to secure our futures.

[00:39:13.93] JEAN SUNG: Don't want to put any country on the spot, but in your opinion, is there any one country in your mind that has really looked at nature-based solutions, whether it's in the city, or in the rural areas, that have really grabbed it? Because as you say, it affects a country's GDP if you plant rice and you don't have rice. If you export seafood and you don't have it, your GDP goes down. So incentives, encouragement, absolutely. And departments, ministries, within a government must work together. Because you can't just have all that rice and have no logistics, and how do export it, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:39:58.53] So in your mind, in your opinion, what are some of the issues-- let's just talk issues before just naming a country-- what are some of the issues that countries have done best in? So because it's an issue, maybe easier to do or in-your-face, that countries have adapted it, adopted it as a nature-based solutions, rather as a challenge, but as an enhancement to help them grow, to help them succeed. What would some of those issues be? Is it farming? What is it, preservation of ocean? What would it be?

[00:40:42.64] NATHALIE SEDDON: So there's lots, aren't there? I mean, obviously some nations are really focused on the marine environment. So really looking at marine protected areas, not just sort of to protect nature but also to basically protect the production of fish. In very good times, when the conditions are good, those marine protected areas enable fish stocks to grow. And then when times are bad, then you've got plenty of fish there rather than continually having very high levels of fishing, which is what's happened in most of the world. So there's been a big emphasis on the importance of marine protected areas for sustaining-- and so basically sustainable resource management is a huge thing.

[00:41:24.85] But obviously in other parts of the world, so in sub-Saharan Africa, the importance of agroforestry and of enclosures for natural regeneration of savanna habitats, so excluding grazing animals from areas to enable natural regeneration to take place, in other words, to stop soil erosion.

[00:41:42.71] So in various regions of the world there have been-- and China is one of them-- over the years, there's been a massive increase in soil erosion and the loss of farming land through soil erosion. And that was one of the things that motivated the big Grain for Green program and all the tree planting. Very large numbers of trees were planted in areas of the Loess Plateau and [INAUDIBLE]. And that was very effective at reducing soil erosion. It was also very effective in stimulating economies locally and drawing down carbon. But we have a lot to learn from that process as well, because in some areas that, for example, traded off against water security and biodiversity, whereas other areas that were just left to naturally regenerate, bound the soil, were good for biodiversity, locked down carbon, and also didn't compromise local water availability.

[00:42:29.81] So I would say there are all sorts of examples. Different parts of the world have got different challenges. In the US, it's about coastal restoration of salt marshes, for example. Because salt marshes, every year, protects around $23 billion worth of property during hurricane season. So there's a huge financial incentive and insurance-related incentive to scaling up nature-based solutions in that context.

[00:42:53.70] And across Europe we have green infrastructure being introduced in cities. But this has been taken to a whole other level in China with the Sponge Cities concept that I refer to at the beginning, 30 cities, 16 districts, all bringing nature or bringing wetlands and rain gardens into cities to directly tackle the problem of urban flooding. And it is very effective.

[00:43:15.56] So it depends. But there's lots of learning. And certainly lots of learning from Asia or Southeast Asia because of the diversity of threats that landscapes and cityscapes are exposed to with a very high population, growing population, and increasing threat from climate change and other global stressors. So there's a real incentive to innovate and to create these resilient cityscapes, and seascapes, and landscapes for the future.

[00:43:44.22] JEAN SUNG: So that is why we can speak to scientists like you all the time in order to learn of new innovation. I've been told I've got two minutes left. So as a last question, can I please ask you, as takeaways for our audience listening-- obviously there's so much to learn and so much to be more realistic about what could we as an individual or what could we if we're in industry, to embrace, and to innovate, and integrate nature-based solutions into our behavior, into our lifestyle-- what would you give our audience as a few takeaways that you think that they could kind of reflect, perhaps, at some point, and say, ah, we should be doing this, or this is something that-- why didn't I think about it before?

[00:44:40.76] NATHALIE SEDDON: OK, I think it's very important to you take nature's value into consideration when we make any decisions, and think, is there a nature-based alternative to this particular approach we're taking? And maybe there is, and we should investigate more and implement it, or maybe more work is needed to find out what the benefit or, say, the cost-effectiveness of it is compared to alternatives.

[00:45:08.72] But the problem is that the economies have developed without taking nature's value into account at all. And so in many ways this is returning to a more ancient and more Eastern way of thinking, where we recognize that people and nature are one and the same. They're not separate. And separation of values of nature from what people value is basically the root cause of all the problems we face, whether climate change, natural disasters, or pandemics such as the one we're in. So I think just really making sure that that's there.

[00:45:38.17] Realizing that absolutely one of the most important things we do is de-carbonize systems completely, because if we get two, three, four degrees of warming, then the impacts on ourselves on our ecosystems will be so severe that there won't be any solutions. So we need to-- that's really, really important. And I'm sure my colleague, in the last webinar that you had, really underscored that. So that's very important.

[00:46:01.37] But then when you get into the world of nature-based solutions, we have to protect what we've got, so protect what's left. We have to restore much of what we've lost. And then if we're going to do tree-planting, we need to do that very carefully, making sure we use the right species in the right places. And that's what I'd recommend.

[00:46:18.11] JEAN SUNG: And I must ask this question. What should the private sector do? What would be natural drivers for the private sector? Before I turn it over to Q&A.

[00:46:29.44] NATHALIE SEDDON: Well, investing in sustainable, successful nature-based solutions to protect their assets, to green their supply chains, to provide healthy environments to enable the productivity of their workforces. There are so many reasons why it makes sense to work with rather than against nature in the private and public sectors.

[00:46:47.73] JEAN SUNG: Wonderful. So control room, we now open it to questions-and-answer time. And you should have a button at the bottom of your screen, or an icon which is a little hand thing. If you could raise your hand, the control room will unmute you. And you should be able to ask the question out loud.

[00:47:19.39] OK, so let's hear it. I've got one coming up.

[00:47:35.45] (READING) Is it cost-effective to use nature-based solutions? Because if I'm going to embrace nature, it's going to be more difficult to go and get the [INAUDIBLE]. So is it going to cost me more? Should I be doing it? That's the question.

[00:47:53.80] NATHALIE SEDDON: OK, great. I'm going to share my screen now, if I may, because I have a slide that might help with that. I hope that's OK. Let me just--

[00:48:07.62] So here's a slide. So actually, at least over the medium to long term, it's actually much more cost-effective to implement nature-based solutions. So here we have some examples. For example, globally, the benefits of mangrove restoration-- so recreation, disaster risk reduction, fisheries, forestry, all the things that we mentioned, the benefits of those outweigh the costs by a factor of 10.

[00:48:32.43] The issue is that it can take a little bit of time for mangroves to grow, for example, or for a natural ecosystem to regenerate. So when you do your calculations of cost-effectiveness, it changes over time. And so some of the successful nature-based solutions, where they've been implemented, they've provided some financial incentives for the first few years while the ecosystem is regenerating, but then once it has regenerated, it provides all these benefits at very, very low cost. Much cheaper to restore forest or to a restore a wetland than it is to build a big gray better infrastructure. And it lasts longer. And then it provides these multiple benefits.

[00:49:08.49] In terms of nature-based coastal defense projects, there was a global analysis that showed that they were between two and five times more cost-effective compared to engineered structures, and then another analysis that showed that if we lost all our coral reefs globally, annual damages from floods would double and cost from storms would triple [INAUDIBLE] basically. So they provide these huge amounts. So it benefits in terms of protecting us from the impacts of landslides, of storm surges on the coasts and so forth. It provide all these benefits.

[00:49:38.66] And if we get better at placing a value on all the other ecosystem services like recreation and so forth, then cost-effectiveness becomes more apparent. But it's because we've not been very good at placing a value on nature that tend to just not give it a value at all. And it's not been factored into those calculations, into company accounts or national accounting processes. So yes, they are more cost-effective, but you have to take time into account when you make those calculations. And you have to take the benefits of other ecosystem services into account as well. I hope that answered your question.

[00:50:14.80] JEAN SUNG: OK. Any other questions?

[00:50:19.49] AUDIENCE: I have one if it's OK to ask.

[00:50:21.80] JEAN SUNG: Yes, please. Go ahead.

[00:50:23.36] AUDIENCE: Great. So you've touched on this already, Nathalie. But I was wondering, when you talk about the economic benefits of nature-based solutions, what about for the everyday person in terms of job creation and providing job opportunities to, perhaps, lowly-skilled workers? Could you talk about that?

[00:50:44.60] NATHALIE SEDDON: Yeah, I just so happened to have put this slide up, which I think addresses your question. So at the moment we're very interested in how we stimulate the economy after economic collapse in almost every country in the world thanks to the pandemic. So people are thinking of where should we be investing in terms of economic stimulus. And there's a big narrative, a big discourse around green economic recovery. Let's invest in renewable energy sector. It's a very, very important source of jobs.

[00:51:10.55] But we're also really strongly advocating and bringing the evidence together that actually, if we invest in schemes that allow people to get jobs through ecosystem restoration, in other words employing people to plant trees, to maintain them, to look after the ecosystems, to better manage their lands, that that can create an awful lot of jobs and long-term jobs as well.

[00:51:32.40] So we're just bringing the evidence together. And I apologize that this is an example from the States. But you know obviously it's a very big country and lots of data. And there was an analysis conducted by the World Resources Institute very recently, the results of which I show on the slide here, which show that for every million dollars invested in a tree-planting scheme in the US created 40 new jobs. But the important thing is that this compares to 19 jobs which would have come from investments in the aviation industry, seven in finance, and five for oil and gas. So there's a big difference.

[00:52:06.80] So it's like, well, are we going to invest in job creation in the oil and gas sector, with knock-on effects on climate change? Or are we going to invest in tree-planting schemes that create more jobs, and also lock down carbon, and also protect biodiversity for future generations, and so on.

[00:52:20.93] So here the benefits of tree-planting are reduced to job creation numbers. But that's often what decision-makers need, and especially in a world where we're looking at terrible economic recession we need to know where are the jobs going to come from. And there's very compelling examples from here, but also from the US, but also from other countries in the world, that we can create a lot of jobs through ecosystem restoration, whether that's looking after wetlands or, in this case, planting trees.

[00:52:48.31] And then of course obviously for rural communities that have very high dependency on natural ecosystems, we see that if we maintain those ecosystems, they can continue to provide livelihoods-- forest products, timber, honey, and other things that are very important to the local economy. So there's different ways in which nature-based solutions are important for economic recovery. And we're bringing together that evidence, now, actually, to help facilitate decision-making in this space over the coming months.

[00:53:19.33] AUDIENCE: So to follow up on that, do you expect all of these green recoveries that different economies around the world are talking about at the moment, do you expect nature-based solutions to play much of a role globally there?

[00:53:36.39] NATHALIE SEDDON: Certainly some parts of the world this is definitely happening. The European Commission, for example, is really focusing on this. So in Europe at least this is a major thing, but then also in other regions as well. I mean, different countries have got different approaches to this. And some countries are emphasizing-- New Zealand is emphasizing this more than others as well. In some economies, the emphasis is still on economic stimulus, some of the more old industries such as oil and gas and aviation. But I would argue that doesn't-- particularly long-term benefits are going to be outweighed greatly by the impacts of those industries on the planet.

[00:54:23.01] JEAN SUNG: I do have another question. And it says, do we have to change all our fresh food markets in order to respect nature-based solutions?

[00:54:38.62] NATHALIE SEDDON: I don't know. Clearly some producers of fresh food in those markets are sourcing from systems where nature has been appreciated and worked with. So some are coming from agroforestry systems. And so those are the ones that we should be, if we're at a market and we having to make choices about where to buy our food from, then even if it's slightly more expensive, that extra amount of investment in those resources are basically an investment in our future. So it's actually cheaper than the cheap ones, if you see what I mean, if you've got a long-term view on it.

[00:55:18.17] So it's not like all-- I mean, it depends on the region and depends on the market. And I'm not familiar with the markets in your region. But I understand that in some areas there will be options to make very climate and environment-positive consumer choices. But it might mean having funny-looking vegetables rather than the perfect strawberries that Jean was talking about.

[00:55:42.32] We have to kind of change are approaches to what we think of as healthy food. Healthy food isn't necessarily the brightest red or the deepest yellow and the perfect size and shape. If they are those things, then likely is that they've actually been produced using a lot of chemicals and using unsustainable methods. So it we can get our head around eating slightly strange, discolored food that has been produced with nature principles or with the principles of, say, nature-based agricultural practices, likely they might look funny, but actually, nutritionally, they'll be better. They'll be better for you and much better for the planet.

[00:56:19.94] JEAN SUNG: Thank you. I think I'd rather eat a weird-looking tomato than if it's engineered. I have one minute left. So I want to thank you so much, Professor Nathalie Seddon, for giving us your insights to nature-based solutions. We have heard today how nature-based solutions can safeguard our communities, can help restore rich mangroves. If we plant trees correctly we can also help protect the biodiversity in the areas where we live.

[00:56:54.08] The challenges we face is not singular. It is multi-dimensional. We have to make sure that we respect our environment, our climate, our water security, food. And human health crises or disasters could all be mitigated if we really have a nature-based approach I think we've heard some very good positive examples of nature-based solutions. And I'll always remember the virtual background that Professor have behind her. It is about our respect for anything that is nature or natural. And it will help us to provide more resiliency to extreme weather.

[00:57:42.80] So thank you very much for joining us today. And if you have any further comments or questions for our professor, please do not hesitate to contact your J.P. Morgan representative. And I thank you for joining us today.

[00:57:59.30] NATHALIE SEDDON: Thank you.

[00:58:00.56] JEAN SUNG: Thank you.