The Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has published a new call for subsidies to promote actions aimed at the renaturation and resilience of Spanish cities within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR). Its endowment, 62 million euros, will finance the best selected initiatives, with between 2 and 4 million euros per project. Municipalities of provincial capitals, autonomous cities and municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants may be beneficiaries of the aid, which, in turn, can be grouped with other entities and bordering municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants, except for the 18 that were selected in the first call. These grants seek to promote activities that contribute to urban renaturation, improving ecological connectivity, increasing biodiversity and generating nature-based solutions that allow key challenges for Spanish cities to be faced, such as adaptation to climate change, improvement of environmental quality and by promoting green infrastructure and the connectivity of green and blue spaces, to increase biodiversity, improve its conservation, adapt to climate change, improve environmental quality and create healthy spaces. In short, and in line with the objectives of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, it is a matter of laying solid foundations to promote a new model of urban development aimed at improving people’s quality of life and the resilience of cities to climate change. The deadline for submitting applications will be extended until December 22, 2022. Initiatives that promote nature-based solutions and promote the presence of natural elements in cities are eligible for the grants. In the case of groups, they must have a maximum of four participating entities. The selection of the projects will be carried out on a competitive basis, following an administrative and technical evaluation process based on strict quality criteria. In compliance with the terms and conditions of the call, only projects that meet the requirements of the

Technical and strategic criteria required, among which it is worth highlighting: correction in its design and in its technical and economic planning; integration into a public strategy; adaptation to the problem to be solved; effective contribution to ecological connectivity, the conservation of urban biodiversity and action against climate change; generation of environmental and social co-benefits; organization and capacities of the potential beneficiary or proposed grouping; consistent social support; transformative character; transferability to other scales and geographical areas; durability of results and definitive resolution of the problem faced. The call is expected to be resolved at the end of the first half of 2023. All selected projects must be completed by 31 December 2025 at the latest.

Funds for urban renaturation and resilience

The Biodiversity Foundation already manages 195 million euros in aid for projects aimed at the renaturalisation of cities and the restoration of river ecosystems in urban environments. Currently, the grants within the framework of the RTRP financed with NextGenerationEU funds have allowed the implementation of 55 projects in both areas (18 selected in the call for renaturation of cities corresponding to 2021 and 37 from the call for river ecosystem restoration and flood risk mitigation, also corresponding to 2021). Both calls have been extraordinarily well received, with the submission of 99 and 230 applications, which requested 346 and 495 million euros, respectively. These figures are a sign of the high degree of interest of Spanish cities in integrating biodiversity into their urban planning models and of the firm commitment of local administrations to the ecological and fair transition.