Cultural ecosystem services and opportunities for inclusive and effective nature-based solutions

The concept of Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) is increasingly applied to sustainable land use change research, policy and planning. Despite an evolving understanding of CES in the research community, policy and planning have not kept up with deeper and more progressive framings of CES. This disjuncture risks the underappreciation of diverse, intrinsic, plural and relational perspectives of CES in emerging policies, such as those related to Nature-based Solutions (NbS) driven by net-zero targets, which in turn hinders the capacity of NbS to deliver their multiple intended benefits. In this article, we examine how the CES concept has been framed and operationalised in recent research on sustainable land use policy, and explore the extent to which the concept of CES has been applied in UK central government policy related to Nature-based Solutions. We highlight the benefits that are emerging of adopting a deeper and more nuanced framing of CES, found in a range of case studies in academic literature. We suggest next steps for a research agenda to better understand the benefits and opportunities of more nuanced CES approaches for particular initiatives and contexts, including for the implementation of Nature-based Solutions in the UK.