Posts by Jelke Brandehof

Healthy soils are essential in fighting climate change and protecting our precious biodiversity, not in the least because soils are very important ecosystems that deliver valuable ecosystem services. Additionally, they are necessary for achieving the objectives of the European Green Deal. Eurosite co-signed a position paper calling for better protection of Europe’s soils, and we urged for…

Mt. Aenos National Park of Greece has started efforts to protect the natural nighttime environment of the park and to become the first International Dark Sky Park of Greece! The Greek Eurosite member has sent an application to the International Dark Sky Association. The Dark Sky Park (core zone) of Mt. Aenos National Park (Fig.1) is a land possessing an exceptional or distinguished quality…

In the run up to the 15th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity which will likely take place in China later this year, the momentum for biodiversity conservation around the world is growing, as important political commitments are already being made by dozens of countries to protect 30% of land and waters by 2030. The European Commission has formally adopted the…

In the past weeks, various Eurosite members have contributed to the public consultation on restoration targets under the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2030. It will propose legally binding nature restoration targets, subject to an impact assessment. The initiative will contribute to the goal of the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy: to put Europe’s biodiversity on the path to recovery. In…

A review and analysis of networks conserving crop wild relatives (CWR) in situ was undertaken by the Farmer’s Pride project consortium to identify the attributes that have contributed to their success. Farmer’s Pride is a project funded under Horizon 2020 and led by the University of Birmingham. The main goal is establishing a European Network for In…

A policy briefing paper was produced by the EU Peatlands & CAP network. With Niall Ó Brolcháin of the National University of Ireland, Galway, being one of the contributors, the paper is also an output of the Interreg Care-Peat project. Explaining how drainage-based agriculture on peatland causes enormous economic and environmental losses through CO2 emissions,…

British Eurosite member and chair of the Remote Sensing Support Group Clive Hurford has recently published a new book, together with co-author Phil Wilson. The book is a nature conservation review, and includes the latest research covering the conservation status of arable habitats in Europe. Additionally, it provides examples of well documented conservation practices as…