The online conference "Shaping urban nature - now!" took place on 7 March 2024 and discussed opportunities around increasing and improving urban nature. In addition to the opportunities offered by urban development funding, the focus was on Urban Greening Plans as ambitious strategies for greener cities.
The status conference "Biodiversity and Climate Change – Exploring Synergies" offers the opportunity to exchange on current research questions at the interface of biodiversity and climate change. Knowledge gaps and further research requirements shall be identified.
Join us on 23-24 November 2023 in the city of Envigado (Colombia), for a special conference and engagement event, through which you will be able to learn in detail from Envigado's experience, as well as from the examples of other cities from the Cities Talk Nature community of practice, and the expertise of the INTERLACE project partners.
On 11 October 2023 the networking project "MoorNet" introduced itself and its activities and provided an overview of its current status. The focus of this event was the new MoorNet website with a database of peatland conservation projects and funding programs in Germany, which will be continuously updated.
The webinar "Effective measures promoting biodiversity – implementation in practice" on 5 October 2023 took a look at the implementation of concrete measures to promote biodiversity in the context of urban development funding. What challenges arise in the creation and maintenance and how can these be overcome?
At the practice forum "Climate Adaptation on the Ground", around 40 participants discussed political and legal options for promoting nature-based solutions for municipal climate adaptation in Germany.
This year's biggest European peatland symposium will examine the scientific, management and policy aspects of peatland restoration and conservation. Register now if you want to be part of the "Power to the Peatlands" conference in September 2023 (Belgium).
The webinar "Considering biodiversity in urban development funding areas – insights and experiences" on 14 September 2023 focused on how biodiversity can be considered in urban development funding areas. How, for example, can biodiversity, quality of life and climate adaptation be brought together in integrated urban development concepts and integrated into the overall concept?
On 28 June 2023, participants joined webinar hosts Ricarda Faber and Aaron Best from Ecologic Institute and their two expert guests: Humberto Delgado Rosa (Director for Biodiversity at the European Commission) and Sabien Leemans (Senior Biodiversity Policy Officer for WWF). Together, they discussed what can be done to restore ecosystems and protect biodiversity in the EU, as well as the new Nature Restoration Law proposed by the European Commission.
In the webinar "Fit for the summer: How can nature-based solutions make municipalities more resilient?", the opportunities that nature-based solutions offer municipalities were discussed.
The City of Chemnitz, upcoming cultural capital of Europe, in cooperation with Climate Alliance and Ecologic Institute invites you to a two-day conference on how to achieve such a green transition in cities.
Ecologic Institute recently hosted a delegation of Rwandan stakeholders consisting of government officials, scientists, and members of civil society. The event, organized by the Development, Climate, and Events teams and supported by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), aimed to expand Ecologic Institute's international networks and increase the reach of their research results.
Pesticide reduction, which is urgently needed, is already anchored as a goal in the German coalition agreement between SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and FDP and also in the EU Commission's Farm to Fork Strategy. However, in order to motivate farmers to use non-chemical alternatives, some adjustments are still necessary. A financial compensation is an important part of this. We cordially invite you to the launch of the BUND study "Alternatives to chemical-synthetic pesticides in agriculture" and appreciate your interest.
This webinar was jointly organised by the projects: INTERLACE, CONEXUS, REGREEN and CLEARING HOUSE as an official side-event of the European Week of Regions and Cities 2022. The webinar brought together about 500 representatives from cities, regions and local authorities, city network representatives, policy-makers, researcher, civil society and experts on nature-based solutions and urban ecosystem restoration from Europe, China and Latin America.
Ecologic Institute organised this side event focusing on the source-to-sea approach, multi-use of marine space and marine protected areas in Europe's seas (and transitional waters) – all timely topics in marine management and conservation. In three distinct sessions, a series of ambitious projects provided an insightful picture of how to balance the increasing use of coastal-marine ecosystems with the preservation or even restoration of their biological richness, by mitigating impacts and curbing pressures to achieve true sustainability. Based on the project contributions, a wider panel discussion with experts from different fields of knowledge discussed the approaches and their synergies, look for holistic solutions and consider what is needed to realise the vision of thriving, healthy European seas and coasts for future generations.
The two-day workshop, funded under the BMUV's Environmental Research Plan, took place on 30 and 31 May 2022 at the Federal Environment Agency in Dessau (Germany) and was dedicated to the topic of "Technical-Hydraulic Assessment of Fish Protection and Downstream Migration at Hydropower Plants".
On the 12 and 13 May 2022, the INTERLACE project held the first Latin American Cities Talk Nature Engagement Event in San José, Costa Rica. The project is led by Ecologic Institute.
To continue the successful exchange on various aspects of Arctic marine conservation in November 2020, twenty international experts from research and policy came together again in a virtual meeting for the "Arctic Marine Conservation Dialogue" on 17 and 18 November 2021.
Nature-based solutions (NbS) are crucial for cities to jointly address the climate and biodiversity crises, while creating quality green jobs and wellbeing for local communities. This COP26 EU Side Event featured different sector practitioners (policy makers, entrepreneurs, international organizations) delivering inspiring presentations and engaging in a panel discussion highlighting a variety of perspectives on key challenges, opportunities, and pathways to mainstream urban NbS and boost local economies.
Biodiversity continues to decline dramatically worldwide. However, current policy instruments, such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, are generating new optimism and a great deal of political attention. Are these processes enough to tackle the biodiversity crisis? Or is radical change and rethinking necessary all the same? At the 6th Future Forum Ecornet, which was organized by Ecologic Institute in cooperation with ISOE on 15 June 2021, approaches for the protection of biodiversity were discussed.
The final online conference of the FIThydro project brought together over 280 participants from across the globe to explore the latest research developments on the topic of sustainable and fish friendly hydropower showcasing the final project’s results in addition to presentations by experts from outside the project on related topics. The online conference was hosted by Ecologic Institute and the Technical University of Munich.
The central objective of the Hydromorphology IV Workshop was to exchange experiences and information and to identify and reflect on challenges of the administrative and practical implementation processes of watercourse development measures.
On November 2020, over 40 international experts with research and governance backgrounds on marine Arctic conservation and its governance frameworks discussed the protection of the Arctic maritime ecosystems as subject of the "Arctic Marine Conservation Dialogue". The experts converged in working groups on "Area-based management" under climate change, sustainable fisheries in the Arctic and oil, gas and biodiversity protection, identified the Status Quo and the specific challenges of the respective subject areas and turned towards potential solutions. The workshop proceedings are available for download.
A group of polish local government experts, landscape planners, architects and engineers participated in a study tour on nature-based solutions in Berlin on 25 and 26 August 2020, which was part of the EUKI project "Climate NBS Poland". Nature-based solutions (NBS) can be implemented in urban settings to deliver a suite of services to address climate change, such as reduce demand for heating and cooling, stormwater management, microclimate regulation but also support human health and recreation. Thanks to their multi-functionality and sustainability NBS are increasingly applied as measures to address climate change in cities – in Berlin, a number of innovative NBS projects have been implemented in Berlin already since the 1990s to address such challenges.
The European Stakeholder Workshop on Fish-friendly Hydropower will be held on 28 and 29 January 2020 in Brussels (Belgium). This event will serve as a platform for consultation and exchange between FIThydro scientists, policy-makers and technical experts working on the assessment of impacts from hydropower plants and the planning of mitigation measures.
On 25 October 2019 the Ecologic Institute supported the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) in a webinar on the IPCC Special Report on "The ocean and the cryosphere in a changing climate" (SROCC). The Ecologic Institute, together with the project Partner Climate Analytics, supported the UBA in defining and formulating the core messages of the SROCC published in September 2019.
The IPCC published a special report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) in August 2019. The report shows that climate change is increasing pressure on land systems. At the same time, however, land systems also play an important role in climate protection, for example through the preservation of ecosystems, more sustainable agriculture and forestry, more climate-friendly diets and the avoidance of food wastage.
The Ecologic Institute organised in June 2019 the two-day Future Workshop of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) on Floodplains and River Development as Future Tasks for Departmental Research.
The BfN introduced the instrument of future workshops in 2015 in order to determine and discuss medium- and long-term research needs in selected topic areas on an annual basis. The main target is the exchange between research institutions, operators and users of research results with the specialist departments of the BfN.
On 7 March 2019, experts working on nature-based solutions (NBS) met in Berlin for an exchange of experiences. The discussions focused on the challenges of planning and implementing NBS and the opportunities and creative solutions to overcome them. The results of this meeting will be integrated into including the development of a catalogue of NBS and an overview of policy instruments to the "Climate NBS Polska" project.
Doris Knoblauch moderated the networking meeting of innovative climate protection projects in the framework of the National Climate Initiative (NKI) for Ecologic Institute on 7 and 8 June 2023.
From 21 to 22 September 2022, the INTERLACE project held the first European Cities Talk Nature Engagement Event in Kraków (Poland). Sandra Naumann, Coordinator of the INTERLACE project and Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, opened the conference by presenting the INTERLACE project and its work on the ground to the audience.
The World Water Day, was introduced by the United Nations in 1992 to remind people of water as an essential resource for life. For this year's theme "Groundwater – making the invisible visible", Ecologic Institute co-organized a webinar to present an augmented reality app that was developed as part of the project Digital Water City (DWC). The webinar was moderated by Alexander Sperlich (BWB) and Dr. Ulf Stein (Ecologic Institute).