Duke Experts Offer Resources for Activating Nature
For two decades, experts at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability have undertaken actionable research and developed purposeful partnerships aimed at integrating nature’s benefits into decision-making.
Launching today, the Nature Activation Hub elevates and organizes this work—bringing together tools, guidance and research to make it easier for decision-makers and practitioners to find what they need. These resources on nature-based solutions, ecosystem services and natural and working lands have been generated via projects with Duke faculty, federal and state agencies, non-governmental organizations and various networks.
“Increasingly, decision-makers and practitioners in the public and private sectors are realizing they can enlist nature to address daunting environmental and societal challenges,” said Nature Activation Hub director Lydia Olander, who is also an adjunct professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment. “The Nature Activation Hub offers credible information, examples and resources to help them identify opportunities to scale up nature-based solutions.”
Nature-based solutions are actions to protect, sustainably manage or restore natural or modified ecosystems to address societal challenges to benefit both people and the environment. Examples include oyster reefs to stabilize shorelines, forest conservation to sequester carbon and green infrastructure such as rain gardens to capture rainwater runoff.
The Nature Activation Hub’s work with its partners currently addresses these key areas:
- Natural resources management: Providing aids for mapping, planning, monitoring, and evaluation.
- Implementation and financing for nature-based solutions: Developing resources to expand the project pipeline.
- Improving evidence and access to nature data: Filling gaps in society’s understanding of the effectiveness of nature-based solutions and enabling natural capital accounting.
The hub also hosts the National Ecosystem Services Partnership, which engages more than 2,000 public and private sector stakeholders to enhance collaboration within the ecosystem services community, including on nature-based solutions.
The Nature Activation Hub website serves as a portal for accessing the Nicholas Institute’s extensive portfolio of work on nature-based solutions and features several new and emerging projects:
- At the annual U.N. Climate Change Conference in November, the U.S. Department of the Interior launched a digital Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap, developed in partnership with the Nicholas Institute. The roadmap builds on a print version released in 2023, adding more than 400 case studies of nature-based solutions projects in the United States and internationally.
- The Environmental Protection Agency awarded a $421 million grant in July to a coalition of four mid-Atlantic states and The Nature Conservancy to protect and restore high-carbon coastal habitats, peatlands and forested land. The Nature Activation Hub will lead tracking and reporting of project benefits and help prioritize projects in North Carolina related to state park land acquisitions and coastal habitat resilience.
- The Nicholas Institute, in partnership with the Conservation Finance Network, is hosting dialog and building case studies to support scaling up financing of nature-based solutions.
- The hub is exploring ideas for a new national nature data strategy to coordinate and streamline nature data sharing and facilitate nature-related decision-making.
The hub’s work engages the expertise of renowned Duke scholars in policy, finance, law, engineering and ecology on projects that are closely aligned with the Duke Climate Commitment. Key partner organizations at the university include the Pratt School of Engineering, the Nicholas School of the Environment, the Duke Wetland and Coasts Center, Duke RESILE, Duke Restore and the Natural Resources Finance Initiative.
“Internal and external partnerships have been critical to the Nicholas Institute’s work on the benefits of nature,” said Brian Murray, director of the Nicholas Institute. “The Nature Activation Hub’s launch highlights the results of these partnerships and opens the door for new projects and collaborations, strengthening Duke’s capacity for advancing nature-based solutions.”