Building a Strong Foundation for Climate Justice: Learnings and Insights
At Nature For Justice (N4J), we’re working with global and local partners to lay the foundation for climate justice. Our work is evolving quickly: Across several African countries, we are building partnerships to identify and support carbon projects that (1) deploy nature-based solutions (NbS) and (2) channel meaningful benefits for participating communities. We are currently […]
Celebrating Earth Day 2023
Preserving Our Planet: Blue Carbon, Biodiversity, and Biodiversity Credits The Role of Blue Carbon Blue carbon refers to the carbon captured and stored by the world’s oceans, coastal ecosystems, and wetlands. These ecosystems absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in their soil, roots, leaves, and branches. Blue carbon’s presence in marine […]
What Makes Nature for Justice Unique
Nature for Justice was created in 2020 to address what we perceived to be the asymmetry in power between on-the-ground groups most affected by climate change and the investors, carbon developers, and companies that were taking advantage of unregulated carbon markets to develop inequitable benefit-sharing agreements. Our first thought was “Wait a second, without the natural […]
Leveraging Biodiversity Credits: An Important Catalyst for Sustainable Forestry Practices
On International Day of Forests, we celebrate the indispensable role forests play in nurturing life on Earth. These natural wonders provide countless species with habitat, function as vital carbon sinks, and contribute to our planet’s well-being. Despite their importance, deforestation and forest degradation persist as significant threats. Biodiversity credits offer a solution, encouraging sustainable forestry […]
5 Barriers to Entry in Nature-based Carbon Projects
Nature for Justice’s (N4J) experience with the request for nature-based carbon project proposals in Africa, which we are also contemplating in Canada with First Nations, has generated an enormous amount of interest. Despite the holiday period in the U.S., we received over 70 proposals by mid-January. While many proposals did not meet the requirements for […]
Spotlighting 5 Black Farmers’ Markets in North Carolina
“When I’m touching the soil, it just gives me freedom,” Samantha Foxx, owner of Mother’s Finest Family Urban Farms in North Carolina. How We Got Here: Black Farmers in North Carolina Black and Indigenous communities have a long history of implementing regenerative agricultural practices. These communities, however, face some of the highest barriers to keeping […]
Nature-based Solutions: A Quick Explainer.
First coined as a term by the IUCN 20 years ago, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are gaining steam across the globe. Major international organizations, large donors, NGOs, and governments see the potential far-ranging benefits of sponsoring NbS projects. Both large and smaller-scale organizations – from the UN, The World Bank, and Conservation International to The Wetlands […]
Wetlands. Protecting Them is a Nature-based Solution.
85% of the world’s wetlands have been lost due to human interference, much of it through large-scale modern agriculture. Known as “nature’s kidneys,” wetlands slow the flow of water across the landscape, allowing sediment, nutrients, and other particles to settle to the bottom. Those nutrients in turn fuel wetland productivity, supporting plants and invertebrates that […]
Evaluating Potential Nature-based Solution Projects: Systematically and Fairly
Last year, we founded an Africa Nature-based Solutions (NbS) Program and secured the commitment of major investors for the development and implementation of socially inclusive, large-scale and long- term projects that are consistent with our strategy to identify and work with local groups and their existing trust networks. Our objective is to develop at least […]
Looking Back to See Forward: 2022 Accomplishments and Opportunities Ahead
2022 – A Year in Review This is a somewhat unusual end-of-year message as I want to talk as much about process as achievements for the year. Nature For Justice(N4J) is a two-year-old organization with big ambitions (i.e. ultimately improving the lives of 100 million people), an expanding set of collaborators (e.g.Ostrom Climate), and confidence that […]
$51 per ton? Nope. Try $185 for the Social Cost of Carbon.
The Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) is the cost of the damages incurred by the emission of one additional metric ton (mt) of CO2. For example, when emitted from car exhaust, CO2 remains in the atmosphere for a long period of time and causes warming, which in turn affects human health and the environment in a […]
Interview with Ganesan ‘Bala’ Balachander, a Nature For Justice Senior Advisor
Old Wine in New Bottles. Nature-based Solutions in the Indian Farming Landscape. Ganesan ‘Bala’ Balachande started his career in physics but his real interest was always in wildlife conservation. He has over three decades of experience at the global, regional, and national levels in corporate banking, international development, applied ecological research, and social enterprises. He […]
