The team Crossing Borders focuses its activities on Europe. The projects we undertake are either European wide surveys or bilateral regional or national projects in the interdisciplinary field of landscape and biodiversity. Our aim is to enable our clients to maintain and improve landscape quality and biodiversity protection in Europe. Sustainability, public participation and stakeholders’ involvement in landscape planning and biodiversity conservation are key words to our ambition.
We work – often in collaboration with members from other teams within or outside the Landscape Centre in fundamental and applied scientific research projects. Some of our broad variety of clients include organizations and services within the European Commission, national and international research organisations, national and regional governments as well as consultancies.
As a team we have initiated and provide the Network Office for LANDSCAPE EUROPE – an interdisciplinary network of national research institutes with expertise in landscape assessment, planning and management at the interface of policy implementation, education and state-of-the-art science in support of sustainable landscapes. www.landscape-europe.net
In 2009 important developments for our team in the field of biodiversity were increased attention on the challenges of Natura 2000 implementation in Europe specifically and biodiversity protection in general, which is a prelude to the Year of Biodiversity 2010. In the field of landscape research significant steps were taken in initiating networks around the European Landscape Convention (CIVILSCAPE and UNISCAPE), and several international research proposals.
Overall 2010 will be an important year for revising of the European policy on biodiversity and celebrating the 10th anniversary of the European Landscape Convention with a Scientific Conference in Florence 18-19 October.
Our team has an important role in the Landscape Centre in supporting international research in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) for development and implementation of biodiversity conservation strategies at national and regional level such as ecological networks. Some of the countries we have been active in 2009 in this field are Ukraine, Russia, Western Balkans, Bulgaria and Croatia.