Lights and shadows of nature-based solutions in the Anthropocene: Perspectives from indigenous narratives in Latin America

Abstract

The profound transformation of the Earth and its ecosystems within the Anthropocene, have opened up a discussion about how to imagine, plan and implement climate action. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are frequently approached as the human actions aimed at protecting, managing, and restoring ecosystems with the dual objective of enhancing environmental conservation and addressing societal challenges such as sustainable development. In this work, we offer a critical analysis of the narratives from which NbS result from. We contextualize the NbS narrative as emergent from the Anthropocene frameworks and use the lenses of alternative worldviews from Latin America and the Caribbean, which hold other ways of knowing historically neglected by Modern ontologies and epistemologies. As most of the research on NbS has been produced in the Global North, we, a group of Latin American early-career scholars and an Indigenous activist, argue that hegemonic narratives on nature —driven current decision making in global environmental change policies- perversely reinforces exclusionary environmental practices at national and local scales. Such narratives are based on human-centered, Eurocentric and hegemonic scientific worldviews. Drawing on qualitative research that included a critical discourse analysis of existing literature, Indigenous Peoples declarations, and interviews, we examine how NbS is defined within the framework of the Anthropocene and in some cases in contradiction with local Indigenous-based narratives and realities. In this paper, we unpack the need to seek and develop local and pluralistic narratives of climate solutions beyond NbS frameworks in Latin America.