The RESCOM project aims to promote the conservation, restoration and sustainable management of vulnerable natural areas in the Mediterranean through the implementation of Nature-based Solutions (NbS), for the benefit of local populations. This is the first initiative of the Mediterranean Biodiversity Consortium (MBC), a coalition of regional environmental organisations created in 2021 with the aim of acting in a more coordinated and complementary way on the scale of coastal territories in which we find several of the most fragile ecosystems, too often treated in “silos” (sea, coasts, forests, small islands and wetlands).
Project objectives
The project has three specific objectives:
- Strengthen the capacities of the project’s pilot site managers and partners on NbS and other protection and resilience measures;
- Promote the exchange of experience and good practice on the application of the NbS concept within an informal regional Think & Do Tank, leading to the deployment of small-scale projects and advocacy activities on a Mediterranean scale;
- Define and implement demonstrative NbS on six pilot sites, in close collaboration with national and local partners involved in site management.
Actions & methodology
As a pilot project, RESCOM aims to test the implementation of this new collaborative, integrated and multi-biome approach, capitalising on the know-how, expertise and learning of each of the members of the MBC in the Mediterranean. It combines regional capacity-building activities, exchanges of experience and advocacy on NbS, with concrete ecological restoration measures deployed in six pilot areas located in Albania, Morocco, Montenegro, Tunisia, Turkey and Italy, and developed in close collaboration with natural site managers and other national and local partners.
Team
Project lead: Tour du Valat on behalf of the MBC: coordination by Marion Douchin and Salima Slimani
Members involved: MedWet, PIM (Mediterranean Small Islands Initiative), IAMF (International Association of Mediterranean Forests), Tour du Valat and IUCN-Med, founding members of the Mediterranean Biodiversity Consortium, in partnership with the French Conservatoire du Littoral.
Teams involved: Ecosystem Management and Restoration, Science-Society Interfaces, Health Ecology
Project date : 2023-2026
Partners
Technical partners:
MedPAN and WWF France (from the MBC) and national institutional partners from the pilot sites:
- Tunisian General Directorate of Forestry; Turkish Ministry of the Environment,
- Urbanisation and Climate Change;
- Moroccan National Agency for Water and Forests;
- Public Enterprise for Coastal Zone Management in Montenegro;
- National Agency of Protected Areas in Albania;
- Municipality of Villasimius in Sardinia.
Financial partners:
French Global Environment Facility (FFEM) and MAVA Foundation
(total contributions of €2.5 million)