New EU project aims to influence how land across Europe is managed
MOSAIC is a new EU-funded project working to understand and influence how land-use across Europe is managed. Twenty organisations from across Europe are collaborating on the 4.5-year MOSAIC project. VITO coordinates the project at the European level. Additionally, VITO will collaborate with INBO, ILVO, and VLM for Flanders, specifically in the recently recognised landscape parks. The collaboration aims to shape these areas in a way that facilitates the development of master plans and implementation plans for the parks, ultimately creating climate-resilient, multifunctional areas with increased biodiversity.
The European Union has set out ambitious goals to combat the climate and biodiversity crisis. To reach these goals, they developed the EU Green Deal, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, and the Farm to Fork Strategy, all seeking to address the overexploitation and unsustainable management of land across Europe in order to adapt to and mitigate the climate crises.
However, the path forward is unclear and policymakers often do not know if their current or planned land-use policies will achieve their objectives for biodiversity and climate change.
The MOSAIC project aims to first understand how land use decisions are currently made and to what extent climate change and biodiversity issues are incorporated.
The MOSAIC team will then work with local people and organisations in six case study locations to establish Policy Labs. Each Policy Lab will develop robust policy options and state-of-the-art modelling will be used to explore the impact of these different policies.
Each MOSAIC policy lab aims to address specific challenges at either regional, national or European level. The MOSAIC policy labs are located in: Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Portugal, Switzerland, and at European-level.
The lessons from MOSAIC’s research, modelling and stakeholder engagement will be made available online through a series of tools, which will support land use decision makers in developing and implementing innovative and effective policies.
To find out more, visit: www.mosaic-europe.eu
