This is a guest post from our partner, Inverto Earth, a company specializing in coastal regeneration projects.

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Importance of biodiversity for coastal development and climate projects

In a world where humanity is adapting and modifying almost every aspect of our environment, our cities and lifestyles would be almost unrecognizable to people from only 100 years ago. We are reshaping the environment at a massive scale to suit our needs and desires, with large scale developments and land use changes. Coastlines are some of the most visible regions affected by this, and will be the focus of this article.

It is not always clear that our modifications are improving our lives on this planet however, with microplastics everywhere from inside our brains to the depths of the Mariana Trench, and pollution detectable on Mount Everest. Key to ensuring that our developments and projects that impact nature can result in a healthier planet and climate for our children is the consideration of biodiversity.

At its core, biodiversity is the diversity of life in all its forms, from animals to plants to bacteria. By ensuring a diverse range of species fulfilling multiple roles in an ecosystem, the ecosystem can function in a much more robust manner, becoming more resilient to shocks and disturbances and improving its adaptability in the face of change. Robust ecosystem services provide crucial benefits and value for coastal developments and in particular climate projects such as afforestation.

Robust asset protection

Diverse coastal ecosystems such as mangroves provide critical protection from storms, erosion, and wind along coastlines. By ensuring variety in the species of plants, the resilience of the ecosystem to disturbances is improved, as well as the protection offered (with seagrasses and shrubs stabilising sediment at smaller scales, and mangrove roots reducing the impact of larger waves). With the establishment of a biodiverse ecosystem adapted for the local conditions, the ecosystem becomes self-sustaining, compared to artificial ecosystems requiring continuous human intervention such as watering, pruning, weeding etc.

Diversified regional economic opportunities

Healthy and diverse coastal ecosystems provide additional economic benefits in the form of eco-tourism opportunities, improved fish stocks resulting from increased animal habitat area, which can also include oyster and shellfish habitats. This increased greenery and proximity to nature can also even improve property values, with exposure to nature providing many mental and recreational benefits.

Positive climate impacts

Coastal ecosystems such as mangrove forests and seagrasses sequester carbon in larger quantities and at rates significantly faster than almost all terrestrial ecosystems. Per hectare, they are some of the most efficient tools we have to combat climate change. And the best part of nature based solutions is that they can take care of themselves without additional costs, provided that they are diverse ecosystems adapted for the region they are in. There are many climate projects which involve the large-scale planting of monocultures of a single tree or plant species. In the worst cases, where this single species is not native to the region, it results in forests which are almost silent, devoid of complex life and providing extremely marginal ecosystem services. In addition, such non-biodiverse monocultures are significantly more susceptible to disease and changes in climate or rainfall.

Contribution to a stable and improved planet for future generations

Today, nature is in the worst state it’s ever been in history, with wilderness and biodiversity being lost at accelerating rates. 96% of the biomass of mammals on our planet are humans and our food (cows, sheep), only the remaining 4% is wild animals such as elephants, whales, etc. Without action taken today many species will go extinct which our grandchildren will never see. Beyond the financial inheritance we leave for our children, we have the opportunity to leave a better and cleaner planet for them than the one we inherited ourselves. This is only possible if we start to measure and take action on biodiversity.

Challenges

Measuring biodiversity in a meaningful way

Biodiversity is much more than a single number or metric like tons of CO2 equivalent which is used to measure climate impact, which makes its measurement more complicated. There are many different indices and methods that can be used for this, ranging from species richness, key species abundance, total habitat size, and many others. While this is much more complicated, many of these measurements are also much more visible and engaging than equivalent tons of an invisible gas. Rare species can be seen in photos, their calls heard in audio, which are all datapoints that are used in measurements of biodiversity.

Complexity of nature

Another challenge is that nature itself is complex. Solutions that work with nature, rather than replace it, often require an in-depth understanding of the ecosystem to ensure that it isn’t further disturbed or degraded. This can take time and involve the collection of large scale data. However, this complexity is also what gives nature one of its greatest strengths, and that is its ability to recover with minimal intervention. In many cases, robust and diverse ecosystems can be created by simply creating the right conditions for nature to take over and do what it does best. Some examples of this are clearing canals and drainage to allow mangrove ecosystems to reestablish, or reducing pollution to allow shellfish populations to recover.

Solutions

Rewilding

The concept of rewilding can be defined in many different ways, but essentially it is about removing the barriers so that nature and wilderness can reestablish itself. Nature is extremely effective at spreading and forming robust ecosystems in the right conditions, and with a few simple nudges those conditions can be created. This approach allows the restoration and regeneration of areas at a very low cost, and in addition often results in more biodiverse and robust ecosystems due to this minimal intervention. Some excellent examples of this can be seen in cases where people remove barriers along rivers to allow it to form its own wetlands and floodplains, which additionally can reduce the impact and intensity of flooding.

Nature tech

A growing field in technology at the moment is nature tech, where there are many startups working on exciting new solutions to monitor and improve the state of nature. Some companies are working on new AI powered sensors to analyze audio and detect bird species, others on drone planting solutions for reforestations, or fungal based solutions for the remediation of polluted landscapes. These solutions and technologies will be key for a future where we work with nature, rather than against it.

Nature positive approach

In the last decade there has been a lot of talk of a net zero approach, for companies and people to have a net impact that is neither positive nor negative. In order to leave the planet in a better condition to how we inherited it, we need to go a step further and take a nature positive approach, where our net impact is not just zero, but positive. There are exciting initiatives and frameworks being worked on globally to assist companies with this transition, such as the Nature Positive Initiative.

It is clear that biodiversity must be a core consideration in any large scale coastal developments, especially carbon projects. Not only from an economic perspective, where it can serve to increase the value of assets and protect them from long term risk, but also when considering what type of net impact we want to have as humans.