Scaling Up Urban Nature: Lessons from Australia on Community-Driven, Equitable Climate Solutions in Land Use Planning “

Start year: 2024

Summary: The aim of this research is to draw lessons from Australia on how land use planning policies can support scaling-up community-driven nature-based solutions in cities and support the global aim of designing equitable land-based climate change mitigation strategies. Despite the important progress towards climate change mitigation within the built environment, studies have shown that current practices can enable inequalities by favoring access to secure land for large-scale climate action projects funded by private and government sectors; and leaving community-driven initiatives with the potential to contribute environmental and social benefits in insecure conditions due to a lack of access to secure land. In Australia, community groups are important actors progressing and innovating nature-based solutions in cities that contribute to land-based climate change mitigation. The impact of these initiatives depends on their access to land. Many of these initiatives face obstacles to expand their operations and impact due a lack of secure land, and stringent land-use planning regulations and standards. Despite this there are emerging examples of innovative community-public and community-private partnerships where community-driven nature-based solutions have been able to reach scale and secure land. This research compares emerging partnership models in Australian cities and identifies the barriers and opportunities to reach scale.