EIP Ecosystem Services
The project partnership gathered in person for the first educational workshop at the Biotechnical Center Naklo on the 11th of May 2023, after meeting online for months. Following the opening address of the lead partner and the brief presentation of BC Naklo, we started the educational workshop and the 4th meeting of the partnership with an in-depth lecture by the project manager, Jernej Stritih, on the development and the history of the concept of ecosystem services, the EU’s common agricultural policy and the basics of climate change. The project partnership agrees that thorough understanding of the basic concepts the project is dealing with is crucial for successful follow-up work.
The meeting was continued by Maša Arnež from Sinergise, who is involved in the development of the application. She presented their work so far to the partners and talked about the possible uses of the finished application. The farms, in particular, have had many positive responses and proposals that Maša will take into account during further development.
We also used the partnership meeting to connect with other EIP projects, this time Sašo Weldt from ZaVita d.o.o. presented the project EIP DIGIGOZD and the use of the MOTI application, which is of interest to some of the partners whose estates also include forests.
We also used the gathering for a short meeting of the partnership, in which we discussed the administrative aspects of the project, the plans for summer and autumn of 2023 and started to plan a timeline for the implementation of the activities planned for the third six-month period.
Contribution of farms to the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change using the concept of ecosystem services
The project addresses implementing climate change mitigation and adaptation measures at the level of owners or managers of agricultural land.
Much has been achieved regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation mostly on the strategic level – this is proven by numerous international commitments, action plans and legislative packages, such as the European Green Deal. The planning and deployment of measures is much less developed at lower levels, with implementation being the weakest.
The project will establish and test climate change adaptation and mitigation measure implementation on five farms and in the Pivka Seasonal Lakes Park. The practices developed within this project will contribute to finding systemic solutions in this field and will be appropriate for dissemination to other farms. Ecosystem services have proven to be an appropriate conceptual framework for planning and implementation of these measures as well in communication with other stakeholders.
The main project goal is to improve the capability of farms in in regard to climate change adaptation and to encourage planning and implementation of relevant measures at the level of farms in practice, using an ecosystem services based digital application developed as part of this project.
Among the activities being carried out in the three years of the project are:
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- the development of a digital application.
- capacity building for farm owners and managers.
- trying out the concept of ecosystem services as a decision-making tool for planning and implementation of climate change adaptation measures at the level of farms.
- establishment and implementation a number of concrete climate change mitigation and adaptation measures on the five farms and in the Pivka Seasonal Lakes Park.
We will also define the development potential of the farms based on the climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, followed by an analysis of the efficiency of the measures carried out. The project partner farms will thus become ‘good practice farms’, serving as generators of change in the area.
Skozi projekt bodo tako lastniki kmetij in ostali deležniki, ki so na področju blaženja in prilagajanja na podnebne spremembe ključni za prehod iz strateške na izvedbeno raven pridobili konkretna praktična znanja in spoznali dobre prakse na tem področju. Razvita digitalna aplikacija bo omogočala konkretizacijo ukrepov, definiranje in jasen digitalen prikaz najbolj pomembnih območij za ukrepanje.
Throughout the project the farm owners and managers, as well as other stakeholders, that are crucial in the field of climate change mitigation and adaptation, will gain important, concrete, and practical knowledge and better understanding of good practices in this field. The developed digital application will make it possible to specify measures as well as define and clearly visualise the most important areas where measures should be applied.
Partnership:
- Stritih, Sustainable Development, Bovec
- Farm Volk, Suhorje
- Sinergise d.o.o., Ljubljana
- Public Institute – Tourism Pivka, Pivka
- Farm Jernejevi, Slavinje
- Farm Janez Herlah, Radegunda
- Farm Frank, Topolc
- Farm Brinjevka d.o.o. so.p., Mali dol
- Biotechnic centre Naklo, Strahinj
- Institute Jabolko, Metlika
Approved funding: 249.986,41 EUR
Project duration: 18.5.2022 – 18.5.2025
Project is co-financed by the European Union`s European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and Republic of Slovenia as part of Rural Development Programme 2014 – 2020.
Measure: Collaboration from the Rural Development Programme of Republic of Slovenia 2014 – 2020.
Submeasure 16.5: Support for joint action for climate change mitigation or adaptation and for a joint approach to environmental projects and common environmental practice for EIP projects
More on rural development in the EU: https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/common-agricultural-policy/rural-development_sl
More on Rural Development Programme in Slovenia: https://skp.si/
