"Biodiversity means human health, food security and resilience to climate change. By taking better care of nature, we can mitigate and adapt to climate change, often at a very low cost."
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission (EC, 2024)

Biodiversity is in decline worldwide. Europe, one of the most urbanised continents in the world, is not immune to this crisis. The population of wild species has declined significantly despite existing efforts to conserve and protect our habitats. Since 1991, 30% of the grassland butterfly population have been lost, 1 in 3 bee and butterfly species are in decline. Urban sprawl, construction practices, transit, production, and agriculture are largely responsible for habitat loss, which in turn are further exacerbated by climate change. As a consequence, 81% of habitats are in poor condition in Europe.

At the same time, our cities and communities rely on nature for their food and water supply, as well as health and clean air. Nowhere is the urgency more clear than in cities, which are expected to be home to 68% of the world population by 2050. For World Biodiversity Day, we are looking at important policy frameworks and concrete solutions and initiatives to help boost Europe’s local biodiversity and resilience.

Reversing Europe’s biodiversity loss is a monumental task. A task that will require concerted actions from the EU to national and local levels to protect and invest in existing natural spaces and implement large scale nature restoration. The EU’s proposed Nature Restoration Law, the Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience, and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 are crucial steps towards this objective. The EU’s Nature Restoration Law in particular proposes ambitious targets that are committing the EU to the restoration of 90% of habitats in poor health by 2050. However, adoption of the law is currently halted by Member States in the European Council, with its future unclear.

Policies and practices to restore biodiversity

In spite of the uncertainty around the Nature Restauration Law, European cities are increasingly turning to nature-based solutions (NbS) to improve local life-quality, infrastructure resilience and biodiversity. Nature-based solutions, as their name suggests, are solutions that are inspired by nature and that can solve environmental, social and economic challenges of local communities. Such solutions bring natural features and processes into cities, landscapes and seascapes.

ICLEI Member Stuttgart (Germany) has, for example, installed over two million square metres of vegetated roofs that absorb pollutants and reduce excess heat and developed a city concept for protecting species on city territory. Pavlos Melas Municipality in Greece is transforming a former military camp in the city centre into a Metropolitan Park. To lead the transition towards implementation of bold biodiversity action in line with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and renewed Plan of Action on Subnational Governments, Cities and Other Local Authorities for Biodiversity (2023-2030), local and regional authorities worldwide came together and jointly created the Berlin Urban Nature Pact. Noting the importance the Pact has for cities, Philipp LaHaela Walter, Head of Biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions at ICLEI Europe adds, "The Berlin Urban Nature Pact is a first-of-its-kind initiative by a city for cities to walk the talk and implement the Global Biodiversity Framework locally. The Pact, developed in an extensive consultation process with dozens of cities from around the world, enables action via a joint set of specific and time-bound targets."

Tools and resources for cities to take action

Importantly, the full impact of these actions and solutions depends on tailoring them to local patterns in biodiversity loss, which can vary significantly across Europe and the world. Identifying these patterns requires systematic and large-scale monitoring which is currently limited to green and protected areas largely outside of cities. In addition, standardised methods for biodiversity monitoring are not so easy to implement in densely populated urban areas, hence limiting cities in exploiting their full potential. Only by collecting and sharing data through innovative approaches such as citizen science platforms (e.g., iNaturalist; eBird; GBIF) and new technologies like wildlife camera traps, or acoustic devices, will it be possible to gather enough high quality data to effectively monitor short and long term trends in biodiversity status across cities. Resulting data would not only aid each city in designing the best solutions for their communities, but it would enable cities to share data and solutions with each other.

ICLEI is working with its Members across the globe to support local governments in protecting and restoring their biodiversity. The ICLEI Cities Biodiversity Center (CBC) offers cities a broad portfolio of supportive services. The ICLEI Europe Biodiversity and Nature based Solution team provides high-quality technical and policy support to European local governments to implement systemic biodiversity and greenification programmes and mainstream nature-based solutions in urban development and infrastructures. As a network, we also ensure that regions are able to share data with one another and compare results.

Concretely, ICLEI has created a list of tools and resources for local authorities wishing to take the next step.

• The City Biodiversity Index is an internationally recognised tool that provides general guidelines for cities on self-assessment and evaluation of key components on these aspects.
• CitiesWithNature and RegionsWithNature provide resources and frameworks designed to increase awareness among communities toward nature positive growth.
• The Urban Nature Platform provides guidance and a toolkit designed to support cities in integrating biodiverse nature across the urban fabric, and includes targeted and vetted monitoring guidance.
• UrbanByNature is a leading global capacity-building programme and platform to help mainstreaming nature across diverse sectors and policy levels and help stakeholders develop community-driven, place-based innovations and policies that are environmentally, culturally, socially, economically, geographically fitting and just.

This Biodiversity Day, take a moment to explore how systematic, robust, and transparent biodiversity monitoring and evaluation can help your city or regions by contacting the ICLEI team or clicking here for more information.

Interested in reading more? Consult our publications “The proposed EU Nature Restoration Law: what role for cities and regions?”, and “Curbing Land Degradation and Restoring Europe’s Soil Ecosystems”.