Lessons from Australia about upscaling the use of nature-based approaches in near-shore marine and coastal restoration and protection.

Coastal and near-shore marine management are facing one of the greatest threats to practical application ever due to the need for meaningful adaptation to the impacts from climate change. There is genuine long-term and large-scale change locked into our coastal and near-shore systems regardless of the pace of emissions control. There are grave practical realities currently faced by coastal and marine managers and planners that will increase in the coming one to two decades. We need restoration and protection tools that work ecologically, socially, economically and practically.

Nature-based approaches to coastal and near-shore habitat restoration can provide a solution to the increasing need for climate adaptation on the coast and in the near-shore, while recovering lost ecosystems and offering protection to communities. Despite the benefits of using nature-based coastal protection to manage coastal hazards, there are scientific, sociopolitical and economic barriers to the broad use of this approach.

Using work done in Australia over the last 5 years, we provide an insight into the scale of nature based coastal and near-shore responses, and an assessment of the barriers to uptake of these crucial ecosystem restoration approaches. From an insight into the Ministerial and policy level decision-making to the very practical issues confronting near-shore marine and coastal managers we bring together of a review of barrier and enablers of near-shore and coastal nature based ecological restoration from Australia.

Published scientific studies have indicated limited use of nature-based approaches for coastal and near-shore restoration and protection in Australia. In one project, we combined a national survey and interviews of coastal practitioners and a grey and peer-reviewed literature search to (1) identify barriers to implementation; and (2) create a database of projects in Australia. We identified 138 qualifying projects in Australia since 1970; with the number of projects increasing through time since 2000. Over half of the total projects (59 %) were successful according to their initial stated objective (i.e., which was usually reducing hazard risk in the near-shore or coastal environment).

In a separate workshop process we looked into the details of 19 identified barriers to uptake of these approaches from the perspective of multiple stakeholders to identify solutions. The workshop involved key partners and stakeholders (from government, engineering consulting firms, and non-governmental organisations) in the management, design, and delivery of these approaches.

Finally, we will present findings from a multi-disciplinary and reflexive study regarding the robustness of a new coastal and marine governance system in the State of Victoria, Australia to enable climate adaptation of local marine and coastal environments. The 3 headline challenges identified were 1/how to meaningfully collaborate with communities for transformational change; 2/ are hard questions about adaptation being asked; and 3/ understanding what levers (e.g., policy, governance, societal) can be pulled to drive adaptation within the available time horizons.

In this presentation we will explore the lessons learned from these 3 projects in Australia on scaling up nature-based near-shore and coastal restoration and protection by using science translated into use.