PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
BESTLIFE2030 (Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Territories of European Overseas) is a grant mechanism focusing on preserving and restoring biodiversity in the EU’s Outermost Regions (ORs) and Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs), which host rich biodiversity but also face significant climate change threats.
BESTLIFE2030 builds on over a decade of experience from the BEST Initiative, with a renewed focus on halting biodiversity loss and promoting ecosystem resilience across the EU’s OCTs and ORs.
OBJECTIVES
The overall objective of BESTLIFE2030 is to make a lasting positive impact on biodiversity, climate adaptation and sustainable development in vulnerable regions.
The project, spanning 6 regions across the world - Amazonia, Caribbean, Indian Ocean, Macaronesia, Pacific and North Atlantic - engages a consortium of experts to guide and empower local stakeholders in implementing conservation projects, thus emphasising capacity development, local community engagement and knowledge sharing.
To achieve this, the BESTLIFE2030 project will:
- establish a financing facility to give support to applicants and grantees for enabling projects that will ensure a conservation impact on the ground, and that will ultimately demonstrate the commitment of the EU overseas territories towards regional and international biodiversity and sustainable development strategies.
- build a strategic framework so that the impact achieved by the awarded projects can inform and reinforce not only the local strategies in the EU overseas, but also those at a national and EU level.
RESULTS
The project's expected results are:
- provision of specific support to local stakeholders in ORs and OCTs for the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable
use of ecosystem services, including for climate adaptation, as set out in the Commission Communication 'A stronger
and renewed partnership with the EU's outermost regions - empowerment of local stakeholders in ORs and OCTs to define and implement projects tailored to their respective challenges and to address effectively concrete conservation issues
- stimulation of the inclusion of conservation and the sustainable use of biological resources into decision-making, and
mainstream issues across all sectors of local economies and policy-making frameworks - contribution to the achievement of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework to be adopted at the Convention on Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (CBD COP) 15