UNP+ Cities Questionnaire: Capacity Building Needs for Urban Nature Plans

Hal Gatewood
News
11 June 2024

Are you a representative of a City or Municipal authority in Europe? To maximise the impact and spread of Nature-based Solutions (NbS), the ‘Urban Nature Plans +’ project developed a science-based survey and invites you to evaluate capacity building needs for your local authorities across the EU.

The EU-funded UNPplus (UNP+) project will address the need for coordinated bottom-up and top-down initiatives, engaging city- and community-driven efforts to complement national sustainability plans. Specifically, 11 academic partners and 5 European cities will explore innovations and barriers related to Urban Nature Plans. UNP+ will harvest learnings over the course of the project to bridge gaps, foster collaboration, and propel a next-generation strategy for urban ecosystem transformation. This work will align with the EU 2030 Biodiversity Strategy and the proposed Nature Restoration Law as well as Network Nature’s priority areas ‘Biodiversity enhancement and ecosystem restoration’ and ‘Climate adaptation, mitigation and resilience’.

This UNP+ survey aims to identify the needs for training and capacity building to assist local authorities to draft and implement effective Urban Nature Plans (UNP). It contributes directly to NetworkNature’s tailored capacity-building output for local and regional authorities and is intended for authority participants and representatives from EU cities of over 20,000 inhabitants.

It is recommended that participants should be involved in ‘the bigger picture’ of urban greening and/or urban nature planning to contribute to this needs and gap analysis and to ease the answering process. The information will be used to help local authorities to develop and implement their own UNPs in accordance with the EU's 2030 Vision for Biodiversity and the EU Nature Restoration Law. Please lend your support to our survey to help roll out Urban Nature Plans across Europe. Take the survey today!