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Cited by 42Environmental Justice and Health DisparitiesUrban Planning and Landscape DesignSustainability and Climate Change Governance

How deep does justice go? Addressing ecological, indigenous, and infrastructural justice through nature-based solutions in New York City

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Grabowski, Zbigniew Jakub, Wijsman, Katinka, Tomateo, Claudia, McPhearson, Timon·2022·Environmental Science & Policy
DOI 10.1016/j.envsci.2022.09.022
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Abstract

Scholarship on Nature-based Solutions (NbS) primarily focuses on the potential for NbS to deliver multiple benefits to humans and biodiversity from networked natural systems. These approaches, if enacted without sensitivity to local contexts and histories, can deepen long standing injustices resulting from the destruction of complex self-organizing ecological systems, the usurpation of Indigenous governance and knowledge, and the prioritization of technical managerial approaches transforming nature into infrastructure. Here we review, synthesize, and critically reflect on existing scholarship on the rise of NbS in New York City, USA, to inform environmental policy in support of just transformations of complex urban systems. To do so, we examine NbS within the context of the social-ecological-technological system (SETS) of NYC. We organize our review and synthesis around three interrelated concepts of justice: Ecological, Indigenous Environmental, and Infrastructural Justice. Ecological Justice entails addressing the harms, needs, and desired futures of ecological actors while identifying synergies with human focused environmental justice concerns and movements. Indigenous Environmental Justice requires restoring Indigenous systems of governance and knowledge while making space for a diversity of social-ecological practices of marginalized communities. Infrastructural Justice addresses the historical and ongoing injustices perpetuated through mainstream infrastructure policy and design practice – including Environmental Justice concerns – which have increasingly turned towards NbS. Without embedding these principles within emergent NbS focused environmental policy agendas seeking just transformations, they will likely recreate utilitarian, anthropocentric, and colonial modes of managing nature as infrastructure. We conclude with a research-to-action agenda for meeting the interdependent needs of urban ecosystems and humans.

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  • In some Global South contexts, the term NbS is increasingly seen as problematic and is actively resisted due to its potential to stimulate greenwashing practices, reinforce legacies of oppression, or to negate rights to land tenure.

    “In some Global South contexts, the term NbS is increasingly seen as problematic and is actively resisted due to its potential to stimulate greenwashing practices, reinforce legacies of oppression, or to negate rights to land tenure (98, 99).”

    From Global synthesis and regional insights for mainstreaming urban nature-based solutions (2025) · cites this paper as [98]

    Sections 3.1–3.3 discuss how NbS discourse omits Indigenous land relations and how greening in New York City has been tied to displacement and oppressive histories. The paper does not establish that the term NbS is increasingly resisted in Global South contexts, or that such resistance is driven by greenwashing or threats to land-tenure rights. (LLM, conf=0.84)

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Research works printed but not linked: 16

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Authors
Grabowski, Z. J., Wijsman, K., Tomateo, C., & McPhearson, T.
Affiliations
  • The New School (US)
  • Utrecht University (NL)
Corresponding author
McPhearson, Timon
ORCID
Venue
Environmental Science & Policy
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2022-12
Volume
138
Pages
171-181
ISSN
1462-9011 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.envsci.2022.09.022
OpenAlex
W4307903976
Cited by
42
References
108
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 8
FWCI
12.95
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Environmental Science & Policy (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • mediaTUM – the media and publications repository of the Technical University Munich (Technical University Munich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
  • California Department of Fish and Game (#GRK 2679/1)
  • Kresge Foundation
  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
  • NordForsk
  • National Science Foundation (1444755, 1927167, 1934933)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Environmental Justice and Health Disparities
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Urban Planning and Landscape Design
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
Keywords
nature-based solutions, ecological justice, Indigenous environmental justice, environmental justice, New York City, urban ecosystems, Indigenous governance, indigenous knowledge, social-ecological-technological systems, infrastructure policy, urban environmental policy

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