The RSG meeting took place on 28th of May 2019 in the city hall in Comacchio. The topic to discuss was the policy instrument (the Territorial Plan of the Po delta Park) which is divided into 6 Station Plans that regulate the use of the territory of several Municipalities. 7 representatives from 6 Municipalities were invited and approached via emails. One representative from the University of Ferrara attended the meeting to present ecosystems services (the history, the meaning, the potential use in protected areas). The focus of the discussion was the territorial plan and how to embed the ecosystem services into this plan. The local administrations can be considered as the key stakeholders.
The main topic was how to integrate ecosystem service into the Territorial Plan of the Park, by exploiting its revision phase (starting in 2019 and by 2022). ART-ER presented the Interreg Europe Programme, main objectives of the project, partnership, phases, budget and state of play.
Po Delta Park explained what are the main expectations from the project implementation, in particular the introduction of the ecosystem services approach into the Territorial Plan. The attendants were encouraged to discuss and give feedbacks on how to manage the update of the Plan. Due to small number of participants each participant could express his/her opinion for the proposed modifications.
The revision of the territorial plan is seen as an opportunity for affecting many aspects, such as the introduction of ecosystem services approach and also homogenization of some items among the 6 stations. The group of stakeholder (local institutions) emphasized the relevance of identifying at least one ecosystem service that could fit in any of the 6 stations and to understand how and where to embed the ES/PES topic into the policy instrument. They stressed the relevance of participation approach during the revision phase. Each municipality will have a crucial role following the regulations defined in the territorial plan of the Park. They are requested to list all problems related to the implementation of the Park directives within the 6 park stations. The aim is to collect all items that need to be edited to be improved during the revision phase. Project partners will evaluate later the organization of a further meeting with the same participants.
The following meeting is not planned yet because Po Delta Park and ART-ER decided to set up thematic RSG and probably next meeting will focus on a different topic. Participants have been invited to the Interregional learning event and partner meeting that will take place in September 2019 in Italy in order to increase their knowledge on ES and PES.
