Identifying nature-based transformations towards sustainability in the Alps

Since its launch in June 2017, 42 researchers have been selected to join the Make Our Planet Great Again program. Among them, Ignacio Palomo, CNRS researcher hosted at the Alpine Ecology Laboratory (LECA - UMR CNRS-UGA-USMB) and coordinator of the PORTAL project which aims to identify transformative solutions based on nature to face climate change in the Alps.
One of the first publications related to the project and to the work of the The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) appeared this December at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, and describes the need to tackle climate change and the conservation of biodiversity simultaneously under the framework of the post-2020 biodiversity targets.



A good Anthropocene would be a world very different to the one we live in now as shown by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which mark the targets for a sustainable world. However, the pathways to achieve them are unclear. Broad evidence indicates that business as usual will not be enough to achieve these targets, and that society needs to undertake radical changes towards sustainability, the so-called transformative change. However, despite abundant theoretical studies of transformative change, few empirical case studies exist to date that analyse transformative change in practice.

The Pathways of Transformation in the Alps (PORTAL) project, hosted by the Laboratory of Alpine Ecology (LECA) (CNRS-UGA-USMB), will identify transformative nature-based solutions to climate change in the Alps. Funded by the Make Our Planet Great Again French-German initiative, PORTAL will characterize initiatives that seek a transformative adaptation to climate change to better understand what elements drive transformative adaptation to climate change and to allow learning and fostering inspiration within mountain social-ecological systems.

The project integrates researchers from the CNRS, the University of Grenoble Alps, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), and the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE). It proposes an interdisciplinary approach by integrating diverse laboratories such as the Laboratory of Alpine Ecology (LECA) and the social sciences laboratory PACTE.

PORTAL focuses on nature-based adaptation initiatives which include very diverse, small-scale, initiatives like new management strategies, technologies, economic instruments, social organizations, movements or approaches, that, by using and protecting nature, make a substantial contribution towards sustainability in the direct context of climate change. PORTAL will focus on identifying, characterizing and assessing the barriers and enabling factors to increase the impact of these nature-based adaptation initiatives towards climate change adaptation and various SDG targets. Various methods including spatial analysis, questionnaires, normative scenario planning, back-casting and knowledge innovation hubs will be combined.

PORTAL will target initiatives in a diversity of social-ecological settings in the Alps, covering eight European countries, where a diversity of these initiatives has been identified. This four-year project, started in February 2020, has already identify the first 100 nature-based adaptation initiatives to climate change in the Alps, and is currently developing an on-line Atlas of nature-based adaptation initiatives through an on-line questionnaire. Besides delivering relevant science within the fields of sustainability science and transformative change, PORTAL aims to showcase the front-runners of transformation and support decision-making to up-scale the impact of initiatives and reach sustainability targets.

One of the first publications related to the project and to the work of the The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) appeared this December at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, and describes the need to tackle climate change and the conservation of biodiversity simultaneously under the framework of the post-2020 biodiversity targets.
Screenshot of the website of the project and the Atlas of nature-based adaptation initiatives

More information

► Portal project website
► On-line Atlas of nature-based adaptation initiatives

Reference

►Almut Arneth, Yunne-Jai Shin, Paul Leadley, Carlo Rondinini, Elena Bukvareva, Melanie Kolb, Guy F. Midgley, Thierry Oberdorff, Ignacio Palomo, Osamu Saito: Post-2020 biodiversity targets need to embrace climate change. PNAS, 7 déc 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2009584117

Local scientific contact

Ignacio Palomo, LECA / OSUG

Updated on 22 January 2021