The INTERLACE Urban Governance Atlas was officially launched on 11 May 2023 at the INTERLACE Cities Talk Nature Conference in Chemnitz. The first of its kind, the online database showcases 250 policy instruments from 41 countries supporting nature-based solutions and ecosystem restoration. The interactive design invites policymakers, urban planners, researchers, civil society organizations, and others to explore and learn more about what made the instruments successful, lessons learned in their design and implementation, and their approaches to governance.

A key objective of the Interlace project is strengthening cooperation, learning, and peer-to-peer interactions between regions and projects. As part of this process, Natalia Burgos from the Interlace team was invited to take part in a knowledge exchange Task Force organized by Clearing House Project. The Task Force took place in Bogotá (Colombia) on 30 and 31 March 2023 and focused on discussing strategies for urban forest management and implementation, with an emphasis on governance and community participation.

On Thursday, 20 April 2023, INTERLACE hosted a Cities Talk Nature Talks webinar, aiming to strengthen cooperation, learning, and peer-to-peer interactions on the local, regional, and global scales. Natalia Burgos presented on governance instruments to mainstream nature-based solutions and shared best practices gathered in the Urban Governance Atlas.

On 15 January 2023 Ewa Iwaszuk gave a lecture to the students of Intercollegiate Academy of Climate, a post-graduate diploma course jointly run by three universities in Poland. Ewa’s lecture presented key steps and elements that need to be considered by local governments when developing climate mitigation and adaptation strategies. It also presented a landscape of local governance instruments that can be developed and implemented to support integrated planning, cross-sectoral cooperation, participation of citizens and sustainable implementation of such strategies.

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.

The Peer Learning note seeks to share practices and lessons. It provides good practice examples from different cities and peri-urban areas in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Spain and Colombia on how to integrate nature in the search for a more inclusive, sustainable and resilient urban development. The Peer Learning Note is targeted at cities, local and regional governments, communities and organizations worldwide interested in the topic of urban restoration.

Ewa Iwaszuk, a Fellow at Ecologic Institute, held a presentation "Policy instruments to promote implementation of nature-based solutions" at a side-event "Nature-based solutions for building performance" during the global climate conference COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh (Egypt). Ewa's presentation made the case that policy instruments and their governance act as critical enablers or barriers to adoption of nature-based solutions. She presented the Urban Governance Atlas that Ecologic Institute is currently developing in the frames of the INTERLACE project and discussed good practice examples of policy instruments from around the world that support the implementation of nature-based solutions at a building level.

From 7 to 19 December 2022, the international community is scheduled to come together to discuss the future of the Convention on Biological Diversity. One of the key items that will be negotiated at the upcoming COP15 is the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. In the light of these upcoming negotiations on 2 November 2022, the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy and Land Use Law at New York University School of Law and the German Consulate General in New York organized an event with experts from New York City and Berlin to discuss the role of local governments in implementing global biodiversity targets, including the ways in which cities can support urban biodiversity. Sandra Naumann, Senior Fellow at the Ecologic Institute, presented Berlin's strategy to promote urban biodiversity and participated in the final panel.

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.

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.

McKenna Davis, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, held a keynote speech at the conference "Designing Urban Spaces with Nature" on 7 September 2022 in Eindhoven (the Netherlands). She spoke about the integration of nature-based solutions (NBS) across key European policy initiatives as a framework for enhancing local NBS action, building on her work for the European Environmental Agency and Naturvation project. She also highlighted good practice examples of policy instruments supporting NBS in the Netherlands, which are part of the Urban Governance Atlas currently being developed within the INTERLACE project.

Nature-based Solutions (NBS) for EU cities and regions represent an integral part of the EU's transition to achieving climate neutrality. In this panel, moderated by Ecologic Institute's McKenna Davis, experts discussed effective, just and inclusive strategies to design, implement and manage NBS, while engaging under-represented or marginalised stakeholders. The event was part of the European Week of Regions and Cities.

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.

The Ecologic Institute developed the INTERLACE project website. It provides information and materials to strengthen urban ecosystem restoration in the European Union and Latin America. INTERLACE aims to strengthen cooperation, learning and peer-to-peer interactions on the local, regional and global scales through the Cities Talk Nature mechanism. The six partner cities are central to this process, providing and sharing experiences with other cities globally and building technical and procedural capacities. A web-based Innovation Hub will support these efforts by disseminating INTERLACE's results and the hands-on tools for urban decision-makers and planners created by the project.

Exciting news: We are developing an Urban Governance Atlas for nature-based solutions as part of the INTERLACE project … and we want you to be a part of it! The Urban Governance Atlas (UGA) will be an interactive online database of around 250 good practice policy instruments that support the use of nature-based solutions (NBS) for urban ecosystem restoration and more inclusive green space planning.