Structuring supply chains of native plant material of wild and local provenance in France: A contribution to ecological restoration and Nature-based solutions

Abstract

European policies aim to simultaneously address the biodiversity and climate crises, partially through the implementation of nature-based solutions (NbS). In parallel, the 2021–2030 United Nations decade on Ecosystem Restoration and an increasing scientific community call for prioritising native species in ecological restoration programmes. In particular, the use of native plant material of wild and local provenance yields important benefits for agroecology, ecological restoration and urban environment management and fulfills five fundamental IUCN NbS criterias. Following a growing European initiative for the production and use of native plant material of wild and local provenance, the “Végétal local” trademark was created in 2015 in France. As part of its initiation, 11 bioregions were designed to guarantee the wild and local origin through controls on the traceability of plant material throughout its supply chain, i.e., from collection to trade. Such plant material has already been mainstreamed into NbS-related programmes and this article describes how this has helped deliver a range of NbS-related environmental and societal outputs. Project managers should continue to rely on native plant material of wild and local provenance to roll out further NbS programmes and meet their objectives.

Keywords

• Native plant material
• Wild and local provenance
• Nature-based solutions
• Ecological restoration
• Ecological engineering