News - Sara Mason

The Nature Activation Hub brings together tools, guidance and resources to help decision-makers and practitioners integrate nature's benefits into decision-making. The hub builds on the Nicholas Institute’s two decades of actionable research and purposeful partnerships focused on nature-based solutions, ecosystem services and natural and working lands.

The Nicholas Institute, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of the Interior, developed an interactive version of the DOI Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap with a new database of more than 400 case studies. One of the Nicholas Institute experts who led the project discusses some of the resource’s features and its applications for DOI staff and beyond.

NESP engages more than 2,000 public and private sector stakeholders to enhance collaboration within the ecosystem services community and strengthen coordination of policy, market implementation, and research at the national level. NESP’s research, products, and regular webinars help advance innovative, sustainable approaches to managing natural resources.

Today the United States Department of the Interior launched a digital Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap, developed in partnership with the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability at Duke University. This free public resource will serve as a user-friendly and accessible guide for implementing nature-based solutions.

Green banks and community lenders are critical partners who can adapt well-known financing approaches to provide climate and community benefits from nature-based projects in markets that mainstream finance often does not reach. In a LinkedIn article, Nicholas Institute experts Sara Mason and Lydia Olander offer examples of innovative financing for nature-based solutions from a series of case studies that they have gathered.

The new Nicholas Institute publication brings together available scientific evidence on mangrove degradation and recovery with anecdotal details from managers and scientists based in Puerto Rico and Florida to help inform management of mangrove habitats in the Jobos Bay and Rookery Bay research reserves.

A Duke University team collaborated with the Department of the Interior to produce a practical, comprehensive resource on implementing nature-based solutions.

The Department of the Interior today announced new steps to utilize nature-based solutions in its efforts to tackle the climate crisis. Those include the launch of the Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap, a new tool developed in partnership with the Nicholas Institute to provide DOI with guidance on implementing nature-based solutions.

As Florida counties eye already-conserved public lands to offset impacts to urban and suburban wetlands, a blog post from the Environmental Policy Innovation Center outlines arguments for putting offsets on public lands and presents counterarguments. The blog post also cites a 2020 Nicholas Institute report to detail safeguards that can be put in place when public lands have to be used for mitigation.

The Biden-Harris administration announced new actions to advance nature-based climate solutions during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28). The list included the Department of the Interior’s Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap, an online tool created in partnership with Duke University that provides strategies, training resources, and successful examples for adopting nature-based solutions throughout the United States.