Search

Nature-based solutions (NbSs) have long recognized the value of coastal and marine ecosystem management and associated ecosystem services as useful tools for climate change mitigation (e.g., blue carbon) and adaptation (e.g., coastal protection against flooding and storm surges). However, NbSs remain poorly acknowledged and mostly absent from coastal planning for disaster risk reduction policies in the Caribbean, as well as from ex-post disaster reconstruction funds. With the increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes in the region, NbSs are now more needed than ever. Taking Mexico as a representative case study for the wider Caribbean, we here seek to identify and analyze the barriers and opportunities perceived by relevant stakeholders for mainstreaming coastal-marine NbSs into coastal management and disaster risk reduction policies (e.g., mangroves as green infrastructure) to protect coastal societies and national economies against hurricanes. We conduct semi-structured, in-depth interviews with twenty stakeholders covering academic, governmental, tourism, NGO, coastal planning, and financial domains. Among the twenty-three identified barriers, governance, institutional, financial, and human-capacity aspects are the most dominant perceptions behind the current lack of NbS implementation. Future action for the policy integration of NbSs requires widespread political will and better quantification of both the provision of ecosystem services and their economic benefits under conventional markets., The authors would like to express their gratitude to the BNP-PARIBAS Foundation for funding support on their 2019 call on Climate and Biodiversity, under the CORESCAM project. Research has also been supported by Summit Foundation, and FFEM through grants admonished by the Smithsonian Institution and Mesoamerican Reef Fund, as well as the Smithsonian Marine Station contribution number: 1183. The BLUEFLUX project acknowledges core support from the NASA Carbon Monitoring System and NASA’s Terrestrial Ecology Program. We would also like to acknowledge all interviewees involved in this research. RMR-C would like to acknowledge salary contribution from the LIFE-DICET project and gratitude to the European University Institute.