As part of a major study for the European Commission, on ‘Linking biodiversity to national economic and social priorities in the EU Member States’, the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and partners are organising a series of regional workshops across the EU.

These workshops are inviting participants from regional and national authorities and other stakeholders to come together to discuss how biodiversity and nature protection can support socio-economic objectives like jobs, growth, urban and regional development, public health or social cohesion.

To learn more about the project download the Project Summary

1st regional workshop, Barcelona

Teresa Pastor, project and policy development manager, represented EUROPARC at the first of these workshops, that took place in Barcelona on 3 May 2017.

The workshop featured presentations on several practical cases from the Mediterranean. They covered areas such as sustainable fisheries and coastal management, agro-ecology, ecotourism, and green infrastructure for public health and climate change adaptation.

The workshop included interactive group discussions on drivers and barriers to using nature-based solutions.  The final is to identify policy needs at regional, national and EU levels to unlock nature’s potential to contribute towards socio-economic objectives.

Three other workshops have been programmed:

• For Northern & Eastern Europe in Helsinki (May)
• For Western & Central Europe in Berlin (June)
• Horizontal workshop in Bruxelles: – Focus on European Semester and EU funding (September)

The main outcomes of the meeting will be shared soon, in the meantime, we leave you the background report, that was the basis of the discussion during the meeting.