📋 Tender Overview
Start Date: 01/01/2022
End Date: 31/12/2026
Total Budget: 3,472,215 €
EU Contribution: 2,083,325 €
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Long Distance Non-Motorized Routes (LDNMRs) are a type of linear development that enables the integration of biodiversity management by creating ecological corridors, extending beyond protected nature sites and regional/municipal borders. Currently, in Europe, a dense network of more than a million km of routes (historical, cultural, livestock, greenways, waterways) is travelled each year by millions of people (300 million around the world) on foot, horseback and by bicycle, for cultural, religious, sports or touristic purposes. Today, LDNMRs are one of the fastest growing sectors of the tourism industry, growing by 10% annually (up until the COVID-19 crisis). They resist economic and health crises, providing affordable tourism conducted in the open air (enabling safe distances in the case of the pandemic). Planning environmental conservation and recreation in an environment favourable to health can combine many objectives, including ecological and landscape connectivity. However, trail networks are typically developed without regard for ecological corridors. Lack of alignment of biodiversity values and human use results in lost opportunities to maximise benefits in an environment of limited economic resources.
OBJECTIVES
The general objective of the Steps for LIFE project is to transform cultural and tourism infrastructures (LDNMW) into multifunctional green infrastructures (GIs), integrating conservation and improvement of biodiversity, optimising ecological connectivity, providing ecosystem services and raising awareness of tourists. This is consistent with the general design principles of GIs, understood as a network of ecologically connected natural and semi-natural sites, and able to become ecological corridors that are part of the Trans-European Nature Network (EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030). With this, it is intended to link the objectives of biodiversity conservation, culture, human health and recreation in natural environments through a multifunctional GI (ecological, cultural and tourism) functioning as an ecological corridor providing a profitable return on investment. This transformation will serve as a basis to be replicated in other LDNMRs in Europe. Thus, it is proposed to work on two levels: concrete actions in two LDNMRs in two countries, and strategic actions for replication.
KEYWORDS
grassland ecosystem
heathland
coastal area
forest management
invasive species
forest
coastal management
