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Development of a European Private Land Conservation Network (ELCN)

ELCN Kick-off

In Berlin, on 19 and 20 June 2017, Eurosite and partners kicked-off a new LIFE Preparatory project: Development of a European Private Land Conservation Network – LIFE ELCN.

The project is being coordinated by NABU (Germany), and besides Eurosite, other project partners are: Xarxa de Custòdia del Territori (XCT) (Spain), Natuurpunt (Belgium), Montis (Portugal), Fundacion Biodiversidad (Spain), Fundatia ADEPT (Romania), ELY Centre Lapland (Finland), IMA Europe (EU) and WWF Oasi (Italy).

The final goal of the project is quite ambitious: the establishment of a European Land Conservation Network (ELCN), with Eurosite acting as the secretariat that will be charged with the long-term management of the network after the project has ended.

The objective of the project is twofold. It aims at testing several private land conservation tools with an eye to promoting their replication at a wider level wherever feasible and proposing policy actions to support them, as well as – in the process – at developing a robust, well-informed European network on private land conservation with a clear long-term strategy (after LIFE) and strong international allies.

The project’s work programme focuses on implementing and assessing innovative private land conservation tools and models, exchanging knowledge and experience about these tools, identifying legal and political obstacles to up-scaling them, and publicising private land conservation among relevant stakeholders. By doing so, the project intends to contribute to the further development of private land conservation tools and the expansion of their use. At the same time, the project will continue and strengthen the networking among the practitioners of private land conservation in the EU and abroad.

As outputs, the project will produce assessments of the conservation tools tested in the project as well as guidelines and policy recommendations for private land conservation in the EU.

A project website with more information will be available soon.