Uncovering historical roots of nature-based solutions: Christian Ludwig Krause's approaches to restoring degraded land in an 18th-century European landscape

Abstract

Nature-based solutions (NBS) represent a recent umbrella concept to tackle land degradation and other urgent challenges. The concept has deep, often-hidden historical roots. To shed light on these origins, this paper examines 18th-century approaches to combat land degradation in a central European landscape, as documented in a 1773 book by Christian Ludwig Krause. First, historical sources on overexploitation and degradation of forests and grasslands in 18th-century Brandenburg (now part of Germany) are examined to illustrate major challenges of that period. Then, an analysis of Krause's book identifies the problems he addressed and the solutions he proposed in response. Krause astutely diagnosed the interaction of different land uses that led to the loss or degradation of forests and grasslands and then to wind erosion that severely affected agricultural fields. He identified reduced flower availability due to overgrazing as a threat to bees and honey production. His main recommendations include restoration of oak woodlands, establishment of tree plantations, recovery of degraded sandy areas, planting of hedgerows as living fences, and bee gardens. He justified these solutions by highlighting negative socioeconomic consequences of land degradation, such as timber shortages and reduced agricultural yields. He addressed farmers and other stakeholders directly, illustrating expected economic benefits of proposed interventions, including for the well-being of future generations. Krause's ideas stand out for several reasons: (i) they are underpinned by a clear-sighted understanding of natural components and processes, combined with practical experience; (ii) he treated land degradation as a social-environmental phenomenon, highlighting the responsibility of various stakeholders for problems and their solutions, supported by economic reasoning; (iii) he linked different land-use systems and local to regional scales, even incorporating urban-rural coupling of nutrient cycles. Most of his suggestions meet present-day criteria of NBS. Two aspects of his work fall outside the NBS framework: (i) historical data on the efficiency of the proposals are missing and (ii) biodiversity gains are not explicitly included in his proposals - although many of them would result in improved biodiversity. Christian Ludwig Krause can be considered an 18th-century pioneer of NBS, with his systems-based thinking serving as a model even today, and he was also a pioneer of ecological restoration and sustainable land use.