The Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, today chaired the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Biodiversity Foundation, in which its Action Plan for 2022 was approved. Among the major milestones for next year, the Foundation plans to launch three other calls for aid within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (RTRP), which will be added to the six published throughout the last quarter of 2021. The three new calls planned have an amount of 159 million euros, aimed at promoting projects that are committed to nature-based solutions and with a positive impact on biodiversity, to guarantee the success of the green recovery.
These transformative projects will focus on areas such as urban renaturation and resilience (€62 million), restoration of river ecosystems and flood risk mitigation and adaptation in urban environments (€75 million) and biodiversity and science (€2 million).
The actions assigned to the RTRP have allowed the Biodiversity Foundation to multiply its activity already in 2021. Growth that will continue during 2022 with the aim of consolidating the transformation processes set in motion thanks, among others, to European funds. To this end, it will continue to promote aid and subsidies that are committed to innovative, lasting, ambitious projects with a great positive impact on biodiversity and nature-based solutions, to face the challenges arising from green reconstruction, biodiversity loss and climate change.
The Foundation will continue with its firm commitment to integrating biodiversity in all territories and in all areas of society. To this end, it will give continuity to the lines of work implemented during 2021, which involve the improvement of scientific knowledge on biodiversity, the promotion of the bioeconomy, the naturalisation of urban environments or the promotion of cultural change and lifestyles necessary to develop a just ecological transition.
Next 2022 will also be the year of the preparation and publication of the Spanish Strategy for Biodiversity and Science, an initiative led by the Directorate General for Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification, coordinated by the Biodiversity Foundation, and which will guide the action of the calls for aid in this area.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND STRUCTURAL FUNDS
The Biodiversity Foundation will continue to coordinate and collaborate in projects co-financed with European funds, such as the LIFE Project for the restoration of wetlands for the Marbled Teal, the LIFE Bears with a future, LIFE ECOREST or the LIFE IP INTEMARES, the largest initiative for marine conservation in Europe that has among its objectives to increase the marine protected areas of our country and manage them in an effective and participatory way.
Looking ahead to the new structural funds programming period (2021-2027), the Foundation will once again apply as an intermediate management body to continue the work it has been developing in this period with the Empleaverde, co-financed by the European Social Fund, and Pleamar, co-financed by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund.
To meet the objectives set out in the Action Plan for 2022, the Biodiversity Foundation will work in this new period in six major areas of work: knowledge generation and management; terrestrial ecosystems: conservation, recovery, bioeconomy and green employment; marine ecosystems: conservation, recovery and blue employment; urban ecosystems: renaturation and resilience; climate change and other drivers of biodiversity loss; promotion of the contribution of the private sector to the ecological transition, without losing sight of issues such as international, communication, awareness and the transfer of results and those that are already cross-cutting priorities in all its projects: gender, climate change and demographic challenge.
The Biodiversity Foundation will continue to develop and consolidate strategic alliances and strengthen ties with its usual partners in the projects such as associations, foundations, NGOs, public administrations, companies, the media, the academic sector and research centres.
