Financing Transformative Nature-based Solutions for Equitable and just Sustainability Solutions (FITNESS) aims to enhance the understanding of Nature-based Solutions (NbS) as a means of advancing sustainability, socio-ecological integrity, and global ecological value while prioritizing social and environmental justice. A flagship NbS mechanism of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) will be analyzed as it incentivizes exchanges in land-use practices to deliver ecosystem services for mutual ecological, livelihood, and human well-being benefits. Embracing a transformative paradigm and recognizing the historical knowledge imbalance between the Global North and Global South, FITNESS aims to optimize NbS programmes by aligning financial flows with attention to the historical, political, and cultural aspects of local contexts, ensuring legitimacy, and sharing best practices for equitable and just transformative change.
Four research questions guide the project:
1) To what extent do justice criteria influence the success of NbS interventions to more effectively deliver ecosystem services?
2) How consistently do financial flows prioritize social and environmental justice, and are there conflicting incentives for ecologically damaging activities through the same funding sources?
3) Who gets included or excluded from decision-making in NbS programs, and how does this impact implementation?
4) What examples exist in Brazil, South Africa, and India of communities taking ownership of NbS projects, and how can these lessons benefit implementation of NbS in Europe?
The FITNESS project is closely linked to ePEStemology, a research collective that looks into the role of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs in conservation work.
FITNESS is a consortium spanning Norway, Belgium, Denmark and Brazil. It is funded through contributions from Research Councils of Norway, Denmark, Belgium and Brazil under the European Union project on BIODIVERSA+ . The total funding amount is 1 million Euros.
