Upscaling

Many attempts to scale conservation actions have failed to deliver their
intended benefts, caused unintended harm or later been abandoned,
hampering eforts to bend the curve on biodiversity loss. Here we encourage
those calling for scaling to pause and refect on past scaling eforts, which
ofer valuable lessons: the total impact of an action depends on both its
efectiveness and scalability; efectiveness can change depending on scale
for multiple reasons; feedback processes can change socio-ecological
conditions infuencing future adoption; and the drive to scale can
incentivize bad practices that undermine long-term outcomes. Cutting
across these themes is the recognition that monitoring scaling can enhance
evidence-informed adaptive management, reporting and research. We
draw on evidence and concepts from disparate felds, explore new linkages
between often isolated concepts and suggest strategies for practitioners,
policymakers and researchers. Refecting on these fve lessons may help in
the scaling of efective conservation actions in responsible ways to meet the
triple goals of reversing biodiversity loss, combating climate change and
supporting human wellbeing.

Coastal restoration is often distrusted and, at best, implemented at small scales, which hampers its potential for coastal adaptation. Present technical, economic and management barriers stem from sectoral and poorly coordinated local interventions, which are insufficiently monitored and maintained, precluding the upscaling required to build up confidence in ecosystem restoration. The paper posits that there is enough knowledge, technology, financial and governance capabilities for increasing the pace and scale of restoration, before the onset of irreversible coastal degradation. We propose a systemic restoration, which integrates Nature based Solutions (NbS) building blocks, to provide climate-resilient ecosystem services and improved biodiversity to curb coastal degradation. The result should be a reduction of coastal risks from a decarbonised coastal protection, which at the same time increases coastal blue carbon. We discuss barriers and enablers for coastal adaptation-through-restoration plans, based on vulnerable coastal archetypes, such as deltas, estuaries, lagoons and coastal bays. These plans, based on connectivity and accommodation space, result in enhanced resilience and biodiversity under increasing climatic and human pressures. The paper concludes with a review of the interconnections between the technical, financial and governance dimensions of restoration, and discusses how to fill the present implementation gap.