Understanding Green Infrastructure and Shrinking rural areas – Pre event brief

As part of its post-2010 biodiversity policy, the European Commission promoted a strategy for an EU-wide Green Infrastructure (GI) with the aim to provide a framework for integrating GI into sectoral policies, including nature conservation. The underlying idea of this initiative is the recognition of the environment as an infrastructural resource capable of delivering a wide range of ecosystem services. The realization of GI within the European strategy must rely on the backbone of the existing established networks of Protected Areas (PAs) under EU regulation, in particular building on the Natura 2000 network. This ESPON Peer Learning Workshop "Understanding Green Infrastructure and Shrinking rural areas" will focus on the potential role of Green Infrastructure in Spain for elaborating regional development plans for shrinking rural areas in the context of climate change policy requirements. The objective is to show and discuss how ESPON knowledge can both inform and inspire the development of national policy instruments and to consider how national and regional stakeholders can make (better) use of trans-European knowledge and case studies.