Boreal forests of the Barents Region stretch through Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, who are all Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Under the CBD, Aichi Biodiversity Targets expired in 2020. This project took stock of the progress made to achieve Aichi Target 11 on protected areas (17% of the terrestrial and inland water areas conserved by 2020) in the boreal forest zone of the Barents Region. As the biodiversity needs to be protected also outside protected areas, this project launched a dialogue with the forestry sector in the Barents Region and sought to establish common ground to mainstream biodiversity in the forestry sector.
It is also very important to ensure a working green infrastructure so as to preserve the ecological linkages in the landscape. Deliverables of this project will serve to develop further cooperation on forest biodiversity protection within the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC) and the Barents Region as whole.
The main activities in the project were
To analyze coverage and representativeness of protected area network in the Barents Region in order to estimate how the Barents Region has achieved CBD Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 on protected areas, by target year 2020, including North Karelia, that is the newest region belonging to the Barents Region.
To plan and organize a joint webinar with the forestry stakeholders e.g. BEAC Working Group on Forests and to disseminate the project results to international, national and regional stakeholders.
To provide enabling elements for the Barents Euro-Arctic Council’s Working Group on Environment and other relevant actors to develop new measures to protect the forest biodiversity in the region beyond 2020 and to develop a wider co-operation project idea(s) to continue co-operation on biodiversity protection outside the protected areas also in the context of climate change.
The results of the analysis of protected area network are available in the publication Changes in the protected area network and forest biodiversity protection in the Barents Region 2013–2020 (norden.org)
Contact information
Project Manager Anna Kuhmonen, Finnish Environment Institute SYKE, firstname.surname@syke.fi, puh. +358 295 251 322