Education and Nature-Based Solutions: enable society to bend the curve for biodiversity

Abstract

In response to the increasing need for cooperation in learning and skills/capacity development for environmental sustainability, including biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions (NBS) learning and teaching, eNaBlS will set the basis of networking and collaboration with a view to promoting transdisciplinary dialogue and further embedding and unfolding NBS concepts and approaches within universities and vocational schools, the professional sphere and society at large. eNaBlS envisions the creation of 7 Living Labs (DE, NL, FI, AT, LT, GR, CZ) to epitomise an integrative approach that includes all ‘voices’ and leaves no one behind. Collecting a variety of input and welcoming a plurality of values and knowledge, the goal is to mainstream biodiversity and NBS in higher education and TVET (Technical and Vocational Education & Training) by developing and upscaling new forms of teaching, learning and capacitybuilding that are more relational, systems-oriented and applied. This should be achieved through multi-actor collaboration and a whole institution approach (WIA) – universities become their own Living Labs – that spans the curricula, pedagogy and didactics, professional development, institutional practices school/university-community relationships and institutional ethos, vision and leadership. Doing so implies working together across silos, sectors and epistemologies as well as a paradigm shift in education and the development of sustainability competencies. The ultimate objective is for eNaBlS to contribute more generally to i) the advancement of a Nature Positive society through the necessary transformative change of communities, business models and lifestyles, and, specifically, ii) put biodiversity and climate on the path to recovery responding to the objectives of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030 and the EU climate adaptation strategy.