– The 19 projects selected, out of 64 submitted, are in addition to the 18 projects from the 2021 urban renaturation call for proposals.
June 22, 2023 – The Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has resolved the call for grants for the renaturalization of cities corresponding to 2022, with the selection of 19 projects from among the 64 applications submitted. The selected initiatives, led by local administrations from all over the country, will receive grants of between €2 and €4 million, with a maximum co-financing of 95%, thanks to the call’s €62 million budget. All projects must be completed by December 31, 2025.
The objective of the call, aimed at municipalities of provincial capitals and other cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, alone or in partnership with NGOs, scientific entities and/or neighboring municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants, is to obtain a transformative result and a lasting impact through projects that contribute to a change in the city model, based on sustainability, the increase of green infrastructure and connectivity of green and blue spaces and the promotion of Nature-based Solutions (NBS). This will increase biodiversity and promote adaptation to climate change in urban environments and improve the health and quality of life of their inhabitants.
19 PROJECTS FROM 12 AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITIES
The selected projects belong to cities in 12 autonomous communities: Malaga and Utrera (Andalusia), Zaragoza (Aragon), Torrelavega (Cantabria), Segovia and Zamora (Castile and Leon), Ciudad Real (Castile-La Mancha), Mataró, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Reus and Viladecans (Catalonia), Pinto and Rivas Vaciamadrid (Madrid), Benidorm and Valencia (Valencia), Santiago de Compostela (Galicia), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Canary Islands), Barakaldo (Basque Country) and Molina de Segura (Murcia).
The quality of the proposals is the criterion that has governed the evaluation of the projects and the awarding of the funding of the call for proposals on a competitive basis. The most coherent applications were evaluated in terms of their actions and expected results, their integration into public plans and strategies, their innovation and their expected impact in order to achieve a real and lasting transformation over time. The aim is to promote actions that integrate biodiversity in cities, favoring and improving the diversity of habitats in urban environments and their adaptation to climate change.
The grants are action-oriented, so all projects will develop direct implementation activities in the territory, whether at the city, peri-urban and urban area, neighborhood, building or block level. In order to favor the sustainability of the actions over time, they must be framed within the framework of long-term municipal plans or strategies, either already in place or included in the project presented. All of them include cross-cutting Governance and Participation and Communication and Awareness plans so that citizens and key agents in the scope of the projects are informed and can actively participate in changing the model of their city. In addition, in order to contribute to the generation of knowledge on urban renaturalization and to be able to transfer and replicate it in other contexts, the projects include a plan for measuring and monitoring impact indicators of the actions to be carried out.
195 MILLION EUROS TO PROMOTE RENATURATION
Between 2021 and 2022 and within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU, MITECO’s Biodiversity Foundation has already allocated €195 million to two calls for the renaturation of cities and a third, more specifically aimed at the restoration of river ecosystems in urban environments. Thanks to them, 74 Spanish cities (selected from nearly 400 applications) can develop their projects in this line of action, which will continue to be a priority for the Biodiversity Foundation, having been designated Intermediate Management Body of ERDF Funds for the period 2021-2027, thanks to which it will manage 102 M€, of which 40 M€ will be allocated to continue promoting urban renaturalization.
