University of Cambridge Conservation Leadership student Inés Hernández is teaming up with the IUCN Urban Alliance and IUCN Environmental Law Centre. Over the coming three months, she will research the potential to secure biodiversity and ecosystem services through the adoption of rights-based approaches to urban development. Her research will culminate in a set of recommendations for enhancing IUCN’s contribution to urban environmental justice.
Inés Hernández is a political scientist from Mexico City interested in ways to integrate biodiversity into cities with an environmental justice perspective. She is currently pursuing an MPhil in Conservation Leadership at the Department of Geography of the University of Cambridge. Inés previously worked to promote urban forests in Mexico and Latin America, with Reforestamos, an IUCN Member based in Mexico City.
A growing body of literature attests to the multifarious benefits of well managed urban nature. These include the reduction of climate and disaster risks such as heat stress, flooding, drought, storm surges and landslides; the purification of air and water; the beautification of neighbourhoods; and the enhancement of public health and wellbeing.
However, prevailing patterns of urbanisation tend to weaken human-nature connections, giving rise to such phenomena as the ‘extinction of experience’ and ‘nature-deficit disorder’. Moreover, urban nature tends to be distributed along lines of affluence which has the effect of compounding social inequities.
The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—particularly SDG 11 to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable—will be altogether more possible if nature can be integrated into the built environment.
To this end, conservation organisations are pursuing a range of strategies including innovative financing models, education, communications campaigns, capacity building, novel partnerships and peer-to-peer knowledge exchange. These have met with varying degrees of success. However, there is one stratagem that remains largely unexplored: the recognition of access to a clean, safe and wildlife-rich environment as a fundamental human right.
What is the current and potential legal basis for recognising human rights to nature? What would be the implications of such recognition for the design, planning, governance and management of urban areas, for people and for nature? What precedent exists globally for governments to legislate in this direction? How might IUCN contribute meaningfully to this agenda?
These are some of the questions that Mexican political scientist, urban afforestation activist and rising conservation leader Inés Hernández will seek to address through her research over the coming three months.
Head of Urban Alliance Russell Galt commented, ‘Improving the ecological performance of cities is integral to the achievement of IUCN’s vision of “a just world that values and conserves nature.” Compelling evidence suggests that a rights-based approach to urban development can bring about significant improvements to conventional urban infrastructure including housing, sanitation, and mobility. IUCN now eyes an opportunity to apply the rights-based approach to enhance the provision of natural infrastructure in cities. By exploring legal precedents, foundations, constraints, prospects and implications, and by drawing up a set of detailed recommendations, Inés will help us to assess the true scale of the opportunity and chart a course for effective action.’