Good practice:

Improving the management of Atlantic landscapes: accounting for biodiversity and ecosystem services

Ecosystem Service related to tourism, fisheries, salt, minerals, agriculture and forestry sectors are endangered by losses on biodiversity because of changes on land uses and climate change. Being aquatic ecosystems, such as rivers and estuaries, especially vulnerable to the impacts of human activities in the watershed, such as urbanization, pollution of rivers, over application of fertilizers, poor soil management or overgrazing, it is imperative to restore and improve biodiversity and enhance Ecosystem Services.
The main goal of the ALICE project is to promote sustainable investments in Blue-Green Infrastructure Networks (BGINs) through identification of the benefits of Ecosystem Services delivered at the terrestrial-aquatic and land-sea interface in the Atlantic Region.
Also, intends to identify economic and social barriers to the implementation of BGINs, providing robust scientific, socioeconomic and environmental policy support for the effective implementation of future BGINs.
The project included: the combination of a range of satellite images, GIS data and modelling frameworks to map aquatic and terrestrial vegetation formations and ecological processes; the enhancement of the predictive capacity by using a multi-model platform; and participatory learning approaches to engage local stakeholders.
ALICE team includes scientists, universities, research institutes, local and national governments, NGOs and SMEs form Portugal, Spain, Northern Ireland, France and UK.

Human resources of the partners involved in the project.
ERDF funding: 2.232.025,62 €
Total budget: 2.976.034,16 €

Development of a full package of new methods, tools and procedures to assist local/regional governments or interested companies (Shellfish gatherers, Forestry companies, etc.) regarding coastal and inland landscape management, targeting and stimulating Blue-Green Infrastructure Networks (BGINs) investment within the 4 Case Studies.

Considering that usually policy makers doesn’t have a big amount of money to apply ALICE to all the river basin, at the same time, for each study case, it has to be defined the strategic areas to apply the NBS. Also, work with many different entities and people can be sensitive and time consuming.

This type of project aims to improve cooperation among institutions/stakeholders to an integrated action in the territory, so it can be replicated among other countries.
The participatory approach is easily transferable to any other European reality, considering that it is necessary money, time to spend getting ground knowledge and organizing the different stakeholders, as also willing to be an active participant and listener with locals. Also, some results like produced tools and methodologies are sharable and easily used, like shared online tools and a manual to learn how to select, work and develop the project with the stakeholders.