Toward just environmental futures: Exploring the equity dimensions of nature-based solutions in cities
Tour of the Edith Stevens Wetland Park, an urban nature reserve in Cape Town
Project partners:
Kate Derickson, University of Minnesota; Dr Maike Hamann, Dr Nadia Sitas, Nontsikelelo Mngqibisa
Project period:
2021 to 2022
Project Description:
This seminar series brought together scholars and community experts from a range of institutions across the world to consider this key question: What role can nature-based solutions play in remediating urban inequality and creating a more just, equitable, and environmentally sustainable urban future that is resilient to crises such as those precipitated by COVID-19? Through comparative analysis across different locations, goals of the seminar series were to trouble dichotomous Global North/Global South frameworks, identify key points of overlap and departure for the application of concepts and frameworks in the ecosystem services and nature-based solutions literature, and explore how engagements with the histories of infrastructure can inform approaches to just urban futures. By fostering an extended conversation across institutions and contexts, the ultimate aim was to provide an opportunity to share best practices and establish future directions for anti-racist and decolonial coupled human-nature systems research on nature-based solutions in cities.
Project outputs:
https://www.urbanstudiesfoundation.org/2023/05/10/toward-just-environmental-futures-exploring-the-equity-dimensions-of-nature-based-solutions-in-cities/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPYQGjDmvpc
