BioValue joined forces with the SELINA project (Science for Evidence-based and Sustainable Decisions about Nature Capital) and organised a joint session to share knowledge and lessons learnt gained in more than one year of their respective research and discuss potential synergies and future collaborations.
Both projects are part of a bigger endeavour of the European Union: a call for transformative change for biodiversity, a striving to change the way people and institutions think about nature and its resources and mainstream the value of biodiversity in different fields. BioValue and SELINA are at the forefront of an increasingly common trend in policy-making in Europe, one that treats biodiversity not only as a gift to be preserved but as a resource to be valorised.
The City of Trento and Trento University are the living embodiment of this programmatic change, as they are actors and scenes in both projects. Indeed, the Fersina River, flowing through the Trento, is one of BioValue’s Arenas for Transformation aiming at regenerating the urban river thanks to the development of Ecosystem Services and their integration into public and private decision-making. Moreover, the City of Trento is one of the fifteen demonstration projects of SELINA, aiming to draft the city’s Urban Greening Management Plan and its Public and Private Green Regulation.
During the joint session, participants dialogued on how to advance sustainable urban development, stressing the complexity of incorporating ecosystem services-related information into spatial planning and its crucial role in shaping urban environments.
As this need for change continues to develop, moments of knowledge sharing like this become extremely important, and joint activities between European projects are a step in the right direction as they can bring forth collaboration among experts and researchers and generate useful and impactful results for the whole society.
SELINA Project
SELINA is a European-funded project that aims to reshape decision-making processes within the public and private sectors by improving the uptake of Biodiversity, Ecosystem Conditions, and Ecosystem Services information.
To this extent, it provides EU decision-makers from various business, policy and societal sectors with the necessary tools and information to help sustain, restore and enforce the climate-neutral use of European ecosystems and their services. Moreover, through the 15 Demonstration Projects, including the City of Trento, SELINA applies new sets of standards for international cooperation to promote ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation and enhance ecosystem conditions EC.
Providing robust practical information and recommendations to stakeholders from both the public and private sectors, SELINA will pave the way towards the transformative societal change required to achieve the ambitious goals of the European Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the Green Deal.
