Search AC2020

Presenters: Deborah Harford (moderator), DG Blair, Patrick Lilley, Josephine Clark and Roy Brooke

Biodiversity loss is a crisis emerging in parallel with climate change; meanwhile, urban and developed areas are largely considered dead zones for connectivity planning. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) recommends that urban areas deploy nature-based solutions, and green infrastructure is increasingly becoming an important low carbon resilience solution to flood and heat management. How might we deploy these nature-based solutions on larger scales to benefit biodiversity through interdisciplinary collaboration among municipalities, stewardship groups, all levels of government and the disciplines of engineering, accounting, planning, environment and development?

This panel session introduces regional-scale approaches that align with emerging green infrastructure and biodiversity protection measures, such as natural assets, climate connectivity and refugia, and watershed-based stormwater management. Participants will be invited to consider how these approaches might work (or not work) in their contexts and envision pathways to solutions using group-based activities and discussion.