Nature inclusive futures for the Netherlands

The ‘Solving the Food-Climate-Biodiversity nexus’ partnership

The global and economic wealth have been growing, driving rapid increase in global food demand. A key challenge the world is facing is to feed the future human population in a just and equitable way, while also achieving biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation goals. To ensure a sustainable and secure future for both humans and the natural environment, decisions about natural resource use and societal well-being must be aligned with Earth's environmental limits. The major global challenge of finding a just, equitable and culturally-sensitive way to feed and nourish the future human population while achieving biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation goals is the focus of the FCB-partnership. This 6-year Partnership will develop viable solutions to global food, climate and biodiversity (FCB) challenges. The University of British Columbia will host the Partnership in collaboration with 13 partners, including WUR. The partnership will work closely with practitioners, policy-makers, stake- and rights- holders, to develop knowledge that will support FCB-related policy discussions and decisions. Our 'nexus approach' studies multiple FCB challenges with a focus on the interactions between them - this is a gap in current work on sustainability that focuses narrowly on specific challenge, systems (e.g., land or ocean), scales (spatial and temporal), or does not account for the interactions between human and natural systems.

Through 5 case studies in Canada, China, Costa Rica, Nigeria/Ghana and the Netherlands, This Partnership aims to: (1) develop diverse visions of 'desirable' futures of food, climate and biodiversity; (2) identify priorities and examine consequences of actions in order to build nexus-informed pathways for transforming and transitioning to sustainability in terms of food security, climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation; and (3) develop procedures and toolkits for implementing the nexus approach in FCB and other sustainability challenges. The case studies align in their common exploration of pathways to inform human decisions to achieve FCB goals. The Partnership will create a lasting international network to support effective policies for global sustainable development.

Overcoming these FCB challenge in the Netherlands requires exploring pathways that will lead us to ‘desirable’ futures in which such food-climate biodiversity (FCB) goals will be met simultaneously. To achieve ‘desirable’ FCB futures, transformative solutions for sustainable food production, climate mitigation and adaptation, and biodiversity conservation are urgently needed.

The MSc thesis will be part of the research project “Pathways towards circular and ‘nature inclusive’ food systems in The Netherlands”that aims to support and facilitate the development of viable FCB solutions that explicitly consider their complex social and ecological contexts.

The thesis will contribute to achieve the overarching goal of the Solving the Sustainability Challenges at the FCB Nexus project, by addressing questions such as:

• How can biodiversity and other living resources be managed to support food security and climate adaptation?
• What are the consequences of future developments of farming and aquaculture and/or fisheries future development on biodiversity and climate?
• What are the overall effects of nature inclusive scenarios for the agricultural sectors on biodiversity and ecosystem services?
• What are the effects of climate change on the effectiveness of nature-inclusive food systems?
• Do nature-inclusive food systems contribute to meet sustainability targets and to what extend?
• What Nature-based Solutions (NbS) can be implemented on agricultural lands to support resilience and health of sea- and fresh- water systems?
• How can small-scale NbS in the Netherlands be upscaled and mainstream?

These questions will be addressed by a literature research that also includes searching the Dutch sources of reports and scientific papers of policy oriented Dutch institutes. These include PBL, Deltares, NIOZ, Rijkswaterstaat, RIVM and others.

Starting date: t.b.d.