Planning a just nature-based city: Listening for the voice of an urban river

Abstract

Cities are under intensifying pressure to respond to climate change and growing social inequities. Integrating nature-based solutions, as part of essential city infrastructure, contributes to resilient, liveable and equitable cities, as well as provision of biodiversity habitat. There is increasing focus on how concepts of justice can be embedded in these planning and governance processes. This paper proposes a framework to inform planning for just nature-based cities. It brings together concepts of just city, environmental and climate justice and more-than-human thinking, with research on urban nature-based solutions. It highlights the centrality of epistemic justice, and the importance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in just nature-based city planning and governance. The just nature-based city framework is applied to the case study of the Yarra River (Melbourne, Australia). In 2017, the Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act, the first legislation in Australia to be co-titled in the Traditional Owners’ language, legally recognised the river as a single living and integrated natural entity. Applying the just nature-based city framework, we find that there are both opportunities and challenges in this new approach to planning. While the Act and associated programs represent substantial and innovative advances, their scope is limited by exclusion of key policy domains and a focus on waterway corridor rather than catchment. The paper concludes by reinforcing the importance of a broadened understanding of justice, that spans both human and non-human considerations, and foregrounds Traditional Owners’ perspectives and aspirations in designing, planning and governing just nature-based cities.