What are possible alternatives to synthetic chemical pesticides without promoting the renaissance of genetic engineering? This brief study intends to provide an overview of the current state of science on possible alternatives to synthetic chemical pesticides and to be understandable for non-experts.

Europe's environment is in an alarming state, with climate change expected to further aggravate the situation. This substantially threatens economic prosperity, human wellbeing and social peace. Our society and economy need systemic transformative change, and ecosystem restoration integrated into nature-based solutions lies at its heart. MERLIN (Mainstreaming Ecological Restoration of freshwater-related ecosystems in a Landscape context: Innovation, upscaling and transformation) is a 4-year Innovation Action project (funded by the EU) which aims to support transformative ecosystem restoration. The project will work in 17 flagship projects, from Finland to Israel, in order to generate a blueprint for to implement, upscale and replicate restoration and nature based solutions in freshwater ecosystems.

Ecologic Institute has been contracted to support the European Commission in preparing a draft version of the Guidance on the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy river restoration targets, thereby bringing together existing knowledge and technical input from different contributors into a coherent document.

The H2020 EU-funded PONDERFUL project will investigate how ponds can be used as nature-based solutions (NBS) for climate change. It will evaluate the interaction and feedback between biodiversity, ecosystem services and climate in pondscapes.

The aim of this project is to develop and test a methodology to assess the management effectiveness of marine Natura 2000 sites and other EU MPAs, in the context of obligations under the Birds and Habitats Directives and commitments under the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030. This methodology will build on experiences and methods used in the Natura 2000 network and other MPAs, as well as on any other available efforts in developing new systems that can be applied to the European context.

The EU-funded project "Species protection rules under the Birds and Habitats Directives: how effectively are they integrated into sectoral policies" supports the European Commission (DG Environment) in identifying existing gaps and uptake of the species protection system provided by the EU Nature Directives in the Member States, specifically in the agricultural and forestry sectors. The project is led by Milieu and is supported by Ecologic Institute, IEEP and Stritih.

In this project, Climact and Ecologic Institute analysed the impact assessment for the new EU climate target proposed by the Commission in September 2020. After examining policy options and modelling results, they were compared with recent studies, in particular with Climact's modelling results for 2030. A policy brief highlights key points where the Commission differs from other studies and identifies climate change potentials that deserve more attention in future analyses.

Cities and their peripheries are constantly confronted with challenges such as urban sprawl, climate change and pollution. These processes can exacerbate the degradation of natural ecosystems, and jeopardize ecosystem service provisioning with negative consequences for human health and well-being, biodiversity, social cohesion and equity, and, finally, city resilience. The INTERLACE project brings together a unique consortium of European and Latin American partners to contribute to effectively restoring and rehabilitating urban ecosystems to make cities more livable, resilient and inclusive. The project aims to advance knowledge and awareness of restorative nature-based solutions (NBS), such as the restoration of wetlands and rivers, as well as to foster more ecologically coherent and integrated city planning processes. In addition, it lays the foundation for sustained multi-directional cooperation and exchange between European and Latin American cities for wider transformative impact.

This project seeks to bring available knowledge together on the future of the EU agricultural production, including on possible sustainability gaps in the form of food, water and energy security, land take and GHG emissions that need to be closed by 2050. The results contribute to a better understanding on how the agricultural sector can contribute to climate-change mitigation and biodiversity conservation, taking into account the growth potential of the bioeconomy and its impact on the environment.

The consequences of climate change are much more visible in the Arctic than in other regions of the world. The increasing loss of sea ice allows to use parts of the Arctic Ocean for a longer time and more intensively than before. This could threaten biodiversity in the polar region critically. Ecologic Institute and its partners are analyzing how a network of marine protected areas in the region could help to conserve marine biodiversity and ensure the functioning of marine ecosystems and their effective management.

With the aim of achieving "good ecological status" in all water bodies by 2015, the Water Framework Directive requires Member States to put more emphasis on hydromorphological issues and watercourse connectivity for the conservation and restoration of fish populations. The aim for the third cycle of the "Forum Fish Protection and Downstream Migration" is to continue the series of workshops on fish protection and downstream migration and to evaluate them in papers, reports and publications. In addition, the website forum-fischschutz.de will be updated and improved. In this project, the fourth UBA Hydromorphology Workshop will also be organised.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has contracted Ecologic Institute and its partner EMVIS Consultant Engineers to provide assistance related to the identification of opportunities for Nature Based Solutions for Water Security (NBS4WS) in Europe. As part of its work on water security in Europe, The Nature Conservancy is preparing two reports: Investing in Nature for European Water Security and Urban Water Blueprint for Europe.

This project provides important input into the Commission report to the European Parliament and Council on the implementation of the National Emissions Ceilings (NEC) Directive (2016/2284/EU), which is due by 1 April 2020. Under the NEC Directive, Member States are required to provide the Commission and EEA with data on the negative impacts of air pollution upon ecosystems, which they collect from a network of monitoring sites representative of their different habitats and forest ecosystem types. This project analyses the submitted data – including on completeness and quality –and assesses how the ecosystem monitoring and reporting process could be improved for future reporting rounds.

Ecologic Institute prepares a study for the German Environment Agency by the beginning of 2020, identifying legal norms beyond water law that can contribute more strongly to effective implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The study is funded under the Environmental Research Plan.

The goal of the European Environment Agency's European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity (ETC/BD) is to collect and monitor data on biodiversity, as well as issues and ecological pressures related to biodiversity. This data is used to establish the state of Europe's ecosystems to support the assessment, development, and implementation of EU policies such as the Nature Directives and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. Ecologic Institute is supporting the ETC/BD since 2014 with data collection and assessment on ecosystem status and trends, policy analysis, and monitoring. Ecologic Institute is also conducting multiple assessments to contribute to the European Environment Agency's assessment reports.