Biodiversity loss and enhancing ecosystem services in urban and peri-urban areas

Cities with their peri-urban areas have a vital role in protecting and enhancing nature and nature contribution to people in urban areas across EU, such as health, well-being, and climate resilience. They are also key in delivering global and EU biodiversity objectives and policies, as recognised both in the ‘post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) Draft 1’[[ Cf. enabling conditions: ‘The implementation of the global biodiversity framework requires integrative governance and whole-of-government approaches to ensure policy coherence and effectiveness, political will and recognition at the highest levels of government. It will require a participatory and inclusive whole-of-society approach that engages actors beyond national governments, including subnational governments, cities and other local authorities (including through the Edinburgh Declaration)’ and CBD/SBI/3/INF/25 as well as future CBD Decision on the updated plan of action on subnational governments, cities and other local authorities for biodiversity’.]] and in the ‘EU biodiversity strategy for 2030‘[[ Measure on bringing back nature to cities and their peri-urban areas, with greening plans to be developed by cities of more than 20 000 inhabitants.]], as well as in the proposal for a nature restoration law[[Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on nature restoration, COM(2022) 304 final, 22.06.2022]] which sets targets for urban and peri-urban ecosystems.

Cities are at the same time pledging for a recognition of their pivotal role(s) in delivering an ambitious GBF, with more than 200 sub-national authorities having signed the Edinburgh Declaration[[ Edinburgh Declaration on post-2020 global biodiversity framework, available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/edinburgh-declaration-on-post-2020-biodiversity-framework/.]]: as decision makers and regulators for land-use and urban development through their statutory role in spatial planning; as land and infrastructure (grey and green) owner, manager or shareholders, such as brownfields and public spaces, including natural and protected areas; as co- initiators and co-funders of local green initiatives, from urban gardening to depaving doorsteps and to the implementation of large-scale NBS.

There is however a lack of knowledge and know-how on:

• how to assess ecosystem condition and services in urban and peri-urban areas, and their contribution to the challenges of the cities,
• how to best plan and prioritise the protection, renaturing, and reconnecting of the NBS and green and blue infrastructure so as to optimise the ecosystem services and address the policy priorities of the city while ‘leaving no one behind’ as stressed by the European Green deal (e.g. promote urban and regional resilience, while addressing spatial justice to avoid increased inequality),
• how to combine, connect and manage different re-naturing actions and interventions and the scales of these actions- from an individual intervention to an urban and functional urban area in order to minimise the trade-offs and disservices and optimise the benefits in a cost effective and efficient manner.

The successful proposal should:

• Building on the work of Horizon 2020 projects and their task forces, take stock of the state the existing urban and peri-urban ecosystems and their services and identify direct (urban development pressure etc.) and indirect drivers of loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services at local level (policy, spatial regulations, financial incentives, land management practices, etc.);
• Develop a replicable methodology for cities and urban areas across Europe to co-design pathways, a shared long-term vision, an integrated strategy with policies and an action plan (e.g. with responsibilities, timeline and financing) towards the urban ecosystem restoration targets as formulated in the Commission proposal for a nature restoration law[[Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on nature restoration, COM(2022) 304 final, 22.06.2022]];
• Include in the methodology the necessary mapping and assessment methods, economic and co-creation governance models to co-develop and prioritise i. combination of cost effective and efficient solutions that will enable to co-implement the strategy and to co-monitor the delivery; ii. innovative solutions and governance models to integrate systematically the strategies in the public, private and people decision making processes, such as public procurement, transport and climate policies, spatial regulations, land management decision, market incentives, etc; iii. innovative financing and business models;
• Co-develop and test the methodology in a representative sample of cities across EU with local stakeholders from the whole society that will enable the uptake of the models and tools developed across EU and EU regions, thus supporting EU territorial cohesion;
• Engage in the testing cities different departments of local authorities, local research and technical organisations, big urban/ land managers or users, including farmers, citizen, including vulnerable groups, SMEs such as nature-based enterprises, etc. Citizen science approach could be used for this purpose;
• Identify the skills and building capacity needs at the local and regional levels, the potential for job creation as well as existing capacity building programmes, with an eye at the inclusion of marginalised communities and at the gender dimension;
• Propose how urban greening plans and spatial planning, including regulations and building code, can act as enablers of the development of NBS market;
• Disseminate outcomes and capacity building activities across EU, connecting with the relevant platforms such as recommended in the EU guidance for urban greening plans, as well as with the “Cities with nature platform”[[ The formally constituted Advisory Committees to the CBD on Local Governments and Biodiversity has ICLEI as the Secretariat. The committees’ main objectives are to coordinate the contribution and participation of all levels of subnational government in processes under the CBD and to act as an advocacy platform for enhanced cooperation between CBD Parties and all levels of subnational government. One of the implementation-orientated platforms is “Cities With Nature”, which act as multi-stakeholder platforms at the local level for learning, measuring and commitments, as well as tracking and reporting on these commitments.]];

Proposals should also:

• Build on existing methods and data from the Urban Greening Plan guidance and toolbox, including JRC MAES urban, EPSON studies, EEA data on green infrastructure;
• Build on the outcomes of the relevant EU-funded projects of the Horizon 2020 and LIFE Programmes[[ Such as ‘LIFE UrbanGreeningPlans’.]], including further testing and developing of the EU Impact Evaluation Framework for NBS[[ The EC Handbook on evaluating the impact of NBS provides a comprehensive reference point on how to measure different types of impacts.]] and similar highly relevant protocols and guidelines;
• Envisage clustering activities with the relevant Horizon 2020 NBS projects and respective task forces as well as with relevant Horizon Europe projects[[ Such as Horizon Europe project NaturaConnect (Horizon-CL6-2021-BIODIV-01-08) and projects stemming from the calls: ‘HORIZON-CL6-2022-BIODIV-01-07: Ecosystems and their services for an evidence-based policy and decision making’, ‘HORIZON-CL6-2022-COMMUNITIES-02-02-two-stage: Developing nature-based therapy for health and well-being’, ‘HORIZON-CL6-2021-BIODIV-01-05: The economics of nature-based solutions: cost-benefit analysis, market development and funding’, ‘HORIZON-CL6-2022-BIODIV-01-03: Network for nature: multi-stakeholder dialogue platform to promote nature-based solutions’; HORIZON-CL6-2024-BIODIV-02-2-two-stage: Demonstrating the potential of Nature-based Solutions and the New European Bauhaus to contribute to sustainable, inclusive and resilient living spaces and communities’.]] and relevant successful projects resulting from calls of the EU Missions “Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities” and “Adaptation to Climate Change”;
• The use of social science and humanities methods and of social innovation is encouraged to encounter also different perceptions, values, experiences, practices, and social production across all stages of urban planning and to contribute to the empowerment of citizens.