Whose city? Whose nature? Towards inclusive nature-based solution governance

Abstract

Nature-based solutions have recently been embraced as one route towards simultaneously addressing urban environmental and social problems, but an emerging agenda has sought to ask whether and how the ‘greening’ of cities may actually reinforce inequalities or lead to new forms of social exclusion. Using comparative case-study analysis, this paper examines the extent to which nature-driven stewardship initiatives recognize and redress inequalities. We compare two urban contexts that have undergone significant societal transformations over the last two to three decades: Sofia and Cape Town. The comparison shows how nature-driven stewardship initiatives differentially address deeper roots of environmental, social and racial privilege shaped significantly by post-socialist and post-apartheid transition contexts. Instead of assuming a homogenous ideal of urban nature and focusing on questions of the distribution of urban nature and its access, this paper finds it is important to consider the kinds of social relations that are required to both shape decision-making processes and generate meaningful and diverse values and ways of relating to nature in the city. Furthermore, it finds that inclusive nature-based solution governance recognizes and redresses both inequalities in access and inequalities that perpetuate dominant views about what nature is and for whom nature is produced and maintained.