Landscape resilience knowledge alliance for agriculture and forestry in the Mediterranean basin

Project Information

ResAlliance

Grant agreement ID: 101086600

DOI

10.3030/101086600

Project closed

EC signature date 18 October 2022

Start date 1 December 2022

End date 30 November 2025

Funded under

• Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

Total cost

€ 2 989 515,00

EU contribution

€ 2 989 515,00

Coordinated by

EUROPEAN FOREST INSTITUTE
Finland

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ResAlliance (Landscape resilience knowledge alliance for agriculture and forestry in the Mediterranean basin)

Reporting period: 2022-12-01 to 2024-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. It is believed that at least 85% of the world population has experienced extreme weather events worsened by climate change, with particularly high damages and losses in agriculture and forestry.
In this context, the Mediterranean basin is particularly vulnerable to climate change: this region is warming 20% faster than the global average. Still, solutions exists and today there is a growing consensus among academics, experts and practitioners that these hazards must be addressed proactively through building resilience at landscape level. However, today the application of solutions to improve landscape resilience is still slow and faces many barriers.
Against this background, ResAlliance aims to improve information and knowledge flow and increase the capacity of foresters and farmers on landscape resilience.
ResAlliance (complete name “Landscape resilience knowledge alliance for agriculture and forestry in the Mediterranean basin”) is a thematic network project funded by the Horizon Europe Programme of the European Union. The aim is to provide foresters and farmers with the knowledge and tools necessary to implement innovative landscape resilience solutions.
Focusing on Mediterranean countries, ResAlliance will gather and assess knowledge, gaps, barriers, and good practices to achieve resilient landscapes, with particular emphasis on measures against the hazards of climate change. This is made effective across four thematic areas, or types of solutions: governance, management, technology, and finance.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

To achieve these objectives, the ResAlliance has set up two interactive multi-stakeholder structures at two levels: the LandNet and the LandLabs.
The LandNet is a Mediterranean thematic network on landscape resilience for forestry and agriculture. By engaging and training farmers, foresters and other key stakeholders from the Mediterranean region, the LandNet will continuously identify new collaborations and networks to improve and increase knowledge and good practices, and provide a wide range of easily accessible materials.
As part of the LandNet, ResAlliance has facilitated a Mediterranean-wide online survey to assess the needs, barriers, gaps and challenges for implementing landscape resilience in the forest and agriculture sectors. This list of needs, barriers, gaps and challenges allowed to better identify the main problems to be solved and to guide the consortium towards the collection of best practices that are of main interest to stakeholders but not sufficiently known or used by practitioners. This search for best practices is not only carried out by the members of the consortium: any actor can submit his/her own best practices through an open call. These best practices will be published in a collection of factsheets (2 pages long) and research abstracts (4 pages long), of which 80 and 40 respectively will be made available to practitioners.
While the LandNet activities are mainly online, the second structure that has been established is the LandLabs. The LandLabs are a regional subset of the LandNet to support knowledge transfer and activate regional landscape resilience solutions in five different Mediterranean countries: Northern Portugal, Catalonia (in Spain), Sardinia (in Italy), Peloponnese (in Greece) and Cyprus. These regions were chosen because they share the threats posed by typical Mediterranean hazards exacerbated by climate change, in particular forest fires and droughts. At the same time, each country has specific social needs and agricultural and forestry challenges that require tailored solutions.
The LandLabs have met twice: once to explore the key landscape resilience needs and challenges in their respective regions, and again to discuss with experts from other LandLab regions how to apply practices and solutions from other LandLab regions to address their own regional resilience challenges.
Other activities planned for the second half of the project include dissemination events at national fairs and exhibitions, field visits to success stories, best practice showrooms and Mediterranean-wide information sessions on how to improve landscape resilience.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

As of 26 May 2024, 35 factsheets and research abstracts have been published and 39 more are in preparation, with good practices from Tunisia, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Romania, Montenegro, Greece, Cyprus and Lebanon. New factsheets and research abstracts are being published all the time. There are two access points to this collection: the ResAlliance project website and the EU-FarmBook platform, where this material is hosted to ensure that it reaches beyond the LandNet and LandLabs communities. Recognising that a 2- or 4-page document is very limited to ensure a full implementation of a practice, the factsheets and research abstracts include further references and details of the organisations that developed these practices so that the creators can be contacted. The practices presented in this collection are free to use, ensuring that access to funds to pay for a license or royalties is not a barrier to their implementation.
For face-to-face exchanges, in spring 2024 each LandLab will host at least two experts from other LandLab regions to learn directly from the implementers of foreign best practices how to adapt and adopt them in their own regional context.