Stakeholders’ Perceptions of Nature-Based Solutions for Hurricane Risk Reduction Policies in the Mexican Caribbean
Claudia Shantal Moreno,
Rosa Maria Roman-Cuesta,
Steven W. J. Canty,
Jorge Herrera,
Claudia Teutli,
Aarón Israel Muñiz-Castillo,
Melanie McField,
Melina Soto,
Cibele do Amaral,
Steven Paton,
Juan David González-Trujillo,
Benjamin Poulter,
Melissa Schumacher,
Pamela Durán-Díaz
Affiliations
Claudia Shantal Moreno
Chair of Land Management, Technical University of Munich, 80333 München, Germany
Rosa Maria Roman-Cuesta
Laboratory of Geo-Information Science and Remote Sensing, Wageningen University & Research, 6708PB Wageningen, The Netherlands
Steven W. J. Canty
Smithsonian Marine Station, Fort Pierce, FL 34949, USA
Jorge Herrera
Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados, Departamento de Recursos del Mar, Mérida 97310, Mexico
Claudia Teutli
Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores, Michoacán 58190, Mexico
Aarón Israel Muñiz-Castillo
Laboratorio de Ecología de Ecosistemas de Arrecifes Coralinos, Departamento de Recursos del Mar, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del I.P.N. Mérida, Yucatán 97310, Mexico
Melanie McField
Smithsonian Marine Station, Fort Pierce, FL 34949, USA
Melina Soto
Healthy Reefs for Healthy People Initiative, Quintana Roo 77723, Mexico
Cibele do Amaral
Earth Lab, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80303, USA
Steven Paton
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), Panama City 0843-03092, Panama
Juan David González-Trujillo
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, C. de Serrano, 117, 28006 Madrid, Spain
Benjamin Poulter
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Melissa Schumacher
Department of Architecture, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Cholula 72810, Mexico
Pamela Durán-Díaz
Chair of Land Management, Technical University of Munich, 80333 München, Germany
Nature-based solutions (NbSs) have long recognized the value of coastal and marine ecosystem management and associated ecosystem services as useful tools for climate change mitigation (e.g., blue carbon) and adaptation (e.g., coastal protection against flooding and storm surges). However, NbSs remain poorly acknowledged and mostly absent from coastal planning for disaster risk reduction policies in the Caribbean, as well as from ex-post disaster reconstruction funds. With the increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes in the region, NbSs are now more needed than ever. Taking Mexico as a representative case study for the wider Caribbean, we here seek to identify and analyze the barriers and opportunities perceived by relevant stakeholders for mainstreaming coastal-marine NbSs into coastal management and disaster risk reduction policies (e.g., mangroves as green infrastructure) to protect coastal societies and national economies against hurricanes. We conduct semi-structured, in-depth interviews with twenty stakeholders covering academic, governmental, tourism, NGO, coastal planning, and financial domains. Among the twenty-three identified barriers, governance, institutional, financial, and human-capacity aspects are the most dominant perceptions behind the current lack of NbS implementation. Future action for the policy integration of NbSs requires widespread political will and better quantification of both the provision of ecosystem services and their economic benefits under conventional markets.
