The first Webinar of the BioValue reflection journey to enhance transformation was held on March 15th by Trento University partners.
The online session aimed at sharing BioValue’s first results on how spatial planning and management instruments (SP&MI) can proactively ensure biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning. Moreover, it allowed BioValue partners to engage with a select group of experts working in spatial planning instruments, discuss the results, and spark dialogues about opportunities and challenges of transformative practices for enhancing biodiversity.
BioValue results
BioValue project has started mapping the European spatial planning landscape, examining challenges, opportunities, and drivers of change towards biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning.
BioValue researchers performed a comparative analysis of 28 spatial plans at diverse territorial levels and from seven countries 28 plans from 7 countries (Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Scotland, Denmark, Germany, and Spain), using an ad-hoc framework, to illustrate the distribution and potential of transformative planning practices across Europe for mainstreaming biodiversity values.
They explored complementarities among plans’ components tackling the following elements of spatial planning systems:
- Governance: Supporting the involvement of actors and stakeholders from the public, private and civil society realms, across several spatial and temporal scales
- Mitigation Hierarchy: Coordinating mitigation hierarchy requirements and goals across spatial planning scales.
- Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services (ES): Improve ecological connectivity and the supply of multiple ES.
Stakeholders’ dialogue
After the presentation of the results, two parallel discussion sessions were organized one focused on local-level planning and the other on regional-level planning. The sessions aimed to collect insights on:
- Practices that can be considered transformative for enhancing biodiversity (e.g. restructuring, path-shifting, innovative and multiscale);
- Practices that should be phased out from spatial plans;
- Current gaps, limitations, and missing transformative elements and practices.
Main points of attention
The main points resulting from the two parallel sessions refer to:
- Transformative practices – Local planning: Governance Strategies (with an example from Denmark), Biodiversity/ES Information Baseline (with a few examples from Portugal) and Actions/Regulations both for Biodiversity and for other sectors (with a few examples from the UK, Portugal, and Denmark.
- Transformative practices – Regional planning: Governance Strategies (with a few examples from Portugal and the UK), and Provision for other Sectors’ Strategies (with a few examples from Portugal and Germany).
- Gaps, limitations and missing transformative practices: Administration constraints, legislation and regulation requirements, conflict among sectors (rather than opportunities and synergies).
Results gathered from dialogue sessions were then discussed in a plenary session, dedicated to understanding differences across scales and planning.
Read the full report and slides.
Watch the recordings of the webinar session:
Photo credits: Racool_studio on Freepik
