We are pleased to announce that the Horizon 2020 WaterLANDS [1] project, of which the Tour du Valat is a partner, has been launched.
This 5-year international project, funded by the European Horizon 2020 Green Deal program, will tackle large-scale restoration of Europe’s wetlands. It will restore wetland sites, covering an initial 10,500 ha, across Europe which have been decimated by human activity and lay the foundations for scalable protection across much wider areas.
WaterLANDS will allow to create best practice models that can be applied to wetland restoration at other sites. By engaging with local communities and stakeholders, the project will ensure that wetland restoration results not only in environmental gains, but also social and economic benefits for the communities involved.
The Tour du Valat will contribute to the project by integrating the lessons learnt from our restoration project in the former saltworks of Camargue. These lessons include both biological and governance issues. The aim is to help new restoration sites in Europe learning from past experiences. This will contribute to transformational change, increasing awareness and social resilience around wetland and peatland restoration.
More information on WaterLANDS can be found at www.waterlands.eu [1] or by following @WaterLANDS_EU on Twitter.