The Eurecat technology centre is to roll out a network of pilot farms in the Ebro Delta to unlock the bioeconomy and climate resilience and will also implement a cutting-edge programme to cut emissions of greenhouse gases such as methane in coastal rice fields while capturing carbon dioxide in woody crops as part of the Bioresilmed consortium financed by the European Union’s Next Generation Funds.
These innovative solutions will be delivered using participatory methodologies through living labs and implemented in the Ebro Delta as a model coastal landscape under the Bioresilmed project, which aims to promote the bioeconomy and sustainable use of biological resources in the economic sectors of Mediterranean landscapes.
“The Bioresilmed project seeks to develop and test management systems which are geared towards the bioeconomy, such as agroecology and ecotourism, and resilient to climate change which are to be extended to other Mediterranean regions,” says Nil Álvarez, coordinator of the Bioresilmed project and a researcher in the Climate Change Line at Eurecat.
“We will also put in place nature-based solutions to enhance ecosystem services.”
Thus in addition to the actions undertaken by Eurecat, the Bioresilmed consortium partners are to work on developing a carbon credit scheme for typical Mediterranean crops delivered by the Business and Climate Foundation, a pilot programme to enhance biodiversity and organic farming of woody crops and rice led by the Aland Foundation, and ecological restoration actions in wetlands in the Ebro Delta under the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation.
Finally, professional capacity-building will be supported in areas such as organic farming, carbon farming and birdwatching tourism with training courses coordinated by Eurecat. This will be accompanied by environmental education for students and the general public by the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation and a volunteer programme run by SEO/BirdLife.
Besides the Ebro Delta, the Bioresilmed project will also conduct pilot tests on AIVeIAI Association land on the Almeria, Granada and Murcia plateau regions as a model of an inland landscape.
The Bioresilmed consortium is led by the Eurecat technology centre and its partners are the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF, UAB), the Aland Foundation, the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation, the Business and Climate Foundation (FEC), SEO/BirdLife and Rovira i Virgili University. The AIVeIAI Association supports the initiative and hosts pilot tests in its region.
The project will run for three years and is financed by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge as part of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.
