- Posted on November 12th, 2024
Insights: Adapting with Nature Peer Sharing Session
In late September, Julie’s Bicycle brought together a group of ten artists and cultural organisations who are working in partnership with nature to adapt to current and future climate change in their communities. Through engaging in inspiring discussions and sharing insights together we delved into how we fully embrace and engage with nature, seeking to share ways to implement nature-based solutions thoughtfully and to co-create with nature in a way that benefits both biodiversity and people and enables us all to lead cleaner, healthier, and more adaptable lives.
Collaborating with nature is a vital way to help reduce exposure to climate risks. Planting more trees in cities and increasing green space, such as green roofs, walls and parks, cools our cities and mitigates the impact of heat waves, while also soaking up excess rainwater reducing flood risk.
We recognise that this work is context-specific, but there is much to learn from the creative community, from insights about ‘how’ to do the work, and from connecting with others as we build a more resilient future. So we offered this session as an opportunity to exchange insights, learnings and experiences and to help facilitate new connections.
Sharing experiences across the cultural sector
The projects shared were diverse; spanning different art forms, interdisciplinary partnerships and approaches to community engagement.
We included diverse geographies and artforms to ensure conversations would reflect a broad range of perspectives, and help to share insights relevant to a diverse range of contexts. The participants selected had worked with nature to prepare for climate change impacts in both national and international contexts including Brazil, Ireland, mainland Europe and a number of locations around the UK. The art forms represented included the commercial and non-commercial music sector, a multi-disciplinary production company, a multi-disciplinary arts centre, museums and libraries. Participants shared an exciting range of projects, demonstrating a myriad of ways in which arts and culture are engaging with nature to prepare for climate change.
Here we share some of the emerging themes and insights from our discussions which centred on: the role of creativity in fostering community cohesion; the importance of partnerships for driving change and connecting different social and environmental priorities; considering the role of place; and approaches for collaborating with nature as a stakeholder.
Creativity: the key to community cohesion
Many of the projects integrated art, culture and creativity as a means to foster environmental awareness and develop locally relevant adaptation strategies, bringing together communities in the process. The participants shared examples of how creativity can act as an entry point for many people to participate in community projects; even for those who would not consider themselves artists. Inclusivity was another important consideration; providing workshops and creative opportunities to those who haven’t previously engaged in cultural activities or environmental work was an effective way to welcome diverse and under-represented voices into adaptation and biodiversity efforts. One project shared their focus on developing deeply creative ways to connect disabled people with green spaces, who often don’t have equal opportunities to experience the wellbeing benefits of public spaces.
One of the participating organisations spoke about convening workshops of poets, visual artists, musicians, anthropologists, a fisherman (and many more!), to engage a broad cross-section of the local community in nature and climate adaptation activities. By bringing together art, science, law and local knowledge, the project has been able to engage 55 local people so far, from all walks of life. The project found that by inviting these different perspectives and experiences they were able to inspire collective imagination and learning as a tool for creating shared visions for a resilient future, helping to move beyond any ideological barriers. In this way, the project felt they could foster a shared sense of agency and connectedness for addressing climate impacts in a holistic way.
Engagement and Building Partnerships
The importance of partnerships emerged strongly in the conversations. Nurturing relationships, being on the ground, finding community champions and having as many conversations as possible were ways that participants found to connect with community and possible partners, whilst learning about the diversity of work and projects already taking place.
Several people spoke about how collaborative networks build resilience; by collaborating with a variety of stakeholders, such as conservation groups, schools, local charities and community groups, projects can build community resilience through greater community cohesion, helping to drive tangible, place-based outcomes.
These local collaborations can work together to identify shared social and environmental priorities, and foster a sense of ownership and responsibility within the community, helping build long-term environmental stewardship and climate preparedness. It was evident that for many of the projects cross-sector partnerships help to foster holistic solutions that build resilience in communities. For example, one project worked in partnership with local energy organisations focused on fuel poverty reduction and energy efficiency; allowing them to engage residents in broader environmental issues, alongside biodiversity, building deeper community awareness and resilience.
Participants found that collaboration allows for greater reach and scalability, as partnerships help amplify project outcomes and can help bridge the gap between policy and practice in nature and adaptation work. In more than one of the projects, partnering with local ecologists, conservationists and artists allowed local communities to engage in citizen science, contributing to national biodiversity data sets whilst also building a shared sense of agency and a deeper understanding of and connection to their local environment.
Despite the benefits of this approach, there can still be challenges in translating the outcomes into meaningful policy change. One participant spoke about the challenge of how to capture the ‘capital value’ of green spaces and local biodiversity in a way which can raise the profile of these projects and communicate the benefits and stimulate investment from local authorities. Others aspired to bring more residents into policy making spaces, to contribute to local decisions and help raise awareness of local policies within the community.
International partnerships highlighted how projects can learn from and integrate diverse perspectives. For instance, one project involving cities from Europe, the US, Asia, Africa and Latin America, is studying different assemblages or clusters of nature-based solutions in urban landscapes, looking at who benefits and under which conditions. The learnings will contribute to understanding societal perceptions of nature based solutions and in developing adaptation strategies. Another international collaborative project is bringing together musicians from different countries to platform the voices of indigenous communities and raise awareness of how they are experiencing climate change impacts. This global exchange of knowledge and creativity strengthens the overall impact of adaptation and nature initiatives.
It’s all about the place!
Many of the participants spoke about the importance of a place-based approach. The success of many projects was tied to their grounding in local contexts, by addressing specific challenges and co-producing solutions with communities on the issues most important to them, for example improving and maintaining access to green spaces and nature for more socio-economically deprived communities or planting trees to build resilience to flooding.
Choosing the right place to engage communities and hold events can also be important; centring a project around a specific locality within a community, such as a well-used community centre can help engage a wider spectrum of people. Holding workshops at a local nature reserve or urban park can play an important role in connecting people to their local environment and provide an opportunity to engage in the local challenges faced by nature and people. Even relatively small events can have a big impact in the community, as people share their experiences with one another.
Nature as a Stakeholder
A common thread throughout the session was the idea of nature as a collaborator and stakeholder in cultural projects. This was explored through discussions about projects focused on permaculture, regenerative practices, and the inclusion of natural systems in strategic planning for cultural activities. We talked about the importance of culture in shifting narratives about nature; away from seeing humans as separate from nature towards understanding ourselves as part of nature and ecosystems. The more resilient we help ecosystems to be, the more resilient humans will be as a species in the face of climate impacts.
Final Thoughts
The discussions revealed a rich landscape of innovative responses to building climate change resilience, from those working at the intersection of nature, adaptation and culture.
To conclude, here are some thoughts to consider from JB:
- There are many ways to engage in nature and adaptation work; but it’s not just what you do, but how you do it. Centring care, community, creativity and communication are vital and collaborating with nature can be a powerful lens.
- Demonstrating how projects contribute to shared goals such as the Global Biodiversity Framework or your local nature plan can strengthen the profile of projects and partnerships and help advocate for their importance within local decision-making forums and with funders.
- And finally, as one of our participants expressed: adaptation work means we have to be adaptable! If we work nimbly and go where the energy is within the community ecosystem, we can work within the “cracks” of the system to push for deeper societal change.
