Ecosystems, resilience and DRR: presenting evidence
Description
Consideration for healthy ecosystems and good environmental governance is part of the Hyogo Framework for Action. Healthy ecosystems can help reduce disaster risk, by preventing or mitigating hazards, reducing exposure and vulnerability, and/or increasing local resilience to disasters. However, the importance of disaster risk reduction in ecosystem management is not well-recognised.
Ecosystem management is a “no regret option” with multiple benefits: cost-effective; implemented by the local population; low maintenance, aesthetical value; carbon storage; supporting biodiversity and strengthening resilience to external shocks. Nonetheless, more engineered solutions tend to prevail and ecosystems fail to be considered or recognised as an alternative or a complementary hybrid option.
Quantifying the role of ecosystems services is therefore critical in providing evidence-based advocacy for ecosystem-based or ecosystem-inclusive disaster risk reduction. The side event will present quantitative studies regarding the role and application of ecosystems in disaster risk reduction. The event will make a case for why investing in ecosystems makes good sense from a technical, social, and economic perspective in reducing the risks of disasters.
The aim will be to promote and scale-up the implementation of ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction and ensure it is integrated as part of sustainable and resilient development planning. The side event will contribute to the discussions on the role of environment in a post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction (HFA2).
Presentations
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Risk and resilience in a changing world (1.24 MB)
Speaker: Remco Fischer, Climate Change UNEP Finance Initiative
