NaturaConnect - Designing a resilient and coherent Trans-European Network for Nature and People
Abstract
NaturaConnect aims to support the development of a truly coherent Trans-European Nature Network (TEN-N), through a combination of stakeholder engagement across scales and interdisciplinary research to develop spatial planning and other policy support tools. Stakeholder engagement both at the European scale, and in a set six of case studies at transborder, national and sub-national scales, will elicit preferences from decision-makers about conservation targets, harness best protected area management practices and funding mechanisms, and test the TEN-N spatial prioritization analysis and tools produced by NaturaConnect. This will address two of the major obstacles identified by the Fitness Check of the EU Nature Legislation: lack of stakeholder awareness and cooperation, and insufficient knowledge and access to existing funding mechanisms. Interdisciplinary research in NaturaConnect will develop state-of-the-art models on the distribution of biodiversity and ecosystem services across Europe and how it may change under future climate and land-use scenarios, in order to identify gaps in the current protected area coverage and to establish ecological corridors to restore connectivity and promote rewilding. Such spatial analysis benefits tremendously from an European level analysis as many important areas for biodiversity occur in border areas, species move regularly across countries, sometimes over great distances as in the case of birds, and EU level priorities are better identified at the continental scale. The biodiversity and ecosystem service datasets and the tools to explore spatial priorities and connectivity restoration will be made publicly available in an interactive FAIR and open science compliant web platform, as a contribution to the European Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD). This addresses a third major obstacle identified by the Nature Fitness Check: limited availability of knowledge. The NaturaConnect consortium brings together an interdisciplinary team of scientists working on biodiversity modelling, ecosystem service modelling, scenario development, spatial prioritization, connectivity, rewilding and conservation management, several of them recognized as being international leaders in their fields. Complementarily, the NaturaConnect consortium involves a range of non-governmental conservation organizations that have been involved in protected area management with multiple stakeholders and in the development of biodiversity policies at the European or regional level, including the largest federation of protected areas in Europe and some of the most influential conservation organizations.
Biodiversity conservation Ecosystem management Strategic conservation planning EU Biodiversity Strategy Trans-European Nature Network Green Infrastructure Blue Infrastructure
Publikationen
Project staff
Rafaela Schinegger
Ass.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.nat.techn. Rafaela Schinegger
rafaela.schinegger@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-85334
BOKU Project Leader
01.07.2022 - 30.06.2026
Georg Gruber
Georg Gruber MSc.
georg.gruber@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-85327
Project Staff
01.02.2023 - 30.06.2024
BOKU partners
External partners
WWF Central and Eastern Europe
none
partner