Local initiatives for deployment of green infrastructure within Natura 2000 sites in the Carpathians

(Green-Go! Carpathians / Carpathians Unite - Green Infrastructure)

LIFE16 GIE/PL/000648

 

The main goal of the project is supporting cooperation of local self-governments and Local Action Groups, as well as involvement of other local stakeholders and communities in activities aimed at inventorying, preservation, and restoration of green infrastructure in rural areas in the Polish part of the Carpathian mountains.

 

SPECIFIC PROJECT OBJECTIVES

• initiating and supporting cooperation of local stakeholders towards the maintenance, restoration and enhancement of green infrastructure – both within habitat Natura 2000 sites (particularly, Special Areas of Conservation – SACs) and beyond;

• disseminating knowledge on the role and importance of green infrastructure and ecological connectivity for biodiversity conservation, access to ecosystem services, and sustainable local development;

• promoting the application of spatial data resources and geoinformation tools in spatial management of areas of high natural values;

• dissemination of good practices of participatory spatial management of valuable natural areas among the countries of the Carpathian region.

Main Project activities and outputs

• capacity building: training workshops for self-governments on sustainable spatial planning and management of green infrastructure;
• inventory and mapping of local green infrastructure by local cooperating networks of stakeholders using a dedicated mobile application and geo-portal;
• elaboration and implementation of a series of local case studies and implementation plans on green infrastructure deployment;
• building public awareness: a series of local information campaigns on green infrastructure and its role in sustainable local development;
• e-learning course and printed manual on the deployment of green infrastructure in nature-sensitive areas in the Carpathians;
• joint meeting of three Working Groups of the Carpathian Convention (WG Biodiversity, WG Spatial Development, and WG Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development).

For more detailed information, please refer to the ACTIONS section. 

Implementation period

September 2017 – December 2020

Geographic scope

Polish part of the Carpathians - 200 communes within the scopes of application of the Carpathian Convention in Poland - with particular focus on (albeit not restricted to) communes on whose territory habitat Natura 2000 sites (SACs) occur. Please, see LOCALIZATION for more specifics and the map of the project area.

Background

This project is one among a whole series of Carpathian undertakings that have been implemented in the Carpathians by UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre under a common "Carpathians Unite" idea, stemming from the "mother project" entitled Carpathians Unite - mechanism of consultation and cooperation for implementation of the Carpathian Convention implemented in years 2012-2016 with financial support from the Swiss-Polish Cooperation Programme (Swiss Contribution).

Continued and enhanced will be our long-standing collaboration with Carpathian stakeholders that constitute most important project target groups - namely:

• local self-government authorities of the Carpathian communes;
• Local Action Groups - associations grouping local self-governments and local leaders;
• regional self-government authorities (Marshall's Offices) of the 3 Carpathian provinces: Silesia, Lesser Poland, and Sub-Carpathia;
• nature protection authorities: Regional Directorates of Environmental Protection in Katowice, Krakow and Rzeszów - in charge of Natura 2000 sites and other issues related to nature conservation (e.g. environmental impact assessments) in the 3 Carpathian provinces;
• managers of protected areas - particularly landscape parks;
• other local organizations and institutions;
• last but not least - Carpathian local communities.

As virtually all of our Carpathian underkakings, this project supports the implementation in Poland of the Framework Convention for the Protection and Sustainable Development in the Carpathians (the Carpathian Convention) a is being carried out in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention (SCC) at UNEP/Vienna Office.