Keynote: Piero Visconti - Building a resilient and coherent Trans-European Conservation Network for Nature and People

While Natura 2000 has been the cornerstone of EU conservation, its focus on selected habitats and species and historical reference conditions limits its ability to address systemic biodiversity decline, ecological processes, and emerging challenges such as climate change. Furthermore, to address the continued isolation and fragmentation of habitat for species, it is imperative to address the historical lack of coordinated and systematic identification of areas to be managed for maintaining or restoring ecological connectivity within and outside protected areas. This new system of ecologically representative, and resilient protected areas and ecological corridors constitutes the Trans-European Nature Network for TEN-N as defined in the EU Biodiversity Strategy. In this presentation I will describe the overarching principles of spatial planning that should drive the design and implementation of a resilient and coherent TEN-N. I will illustrate how these principles can be applied practically for TEN-N planning at all scales from local to pan-European and across all elements of its architecture, including ecologically representative protected areas, strictly protected zones, and multi-functional ecological corridors. Finally, I will discuss the potential coordination and implementation mechanisms of different elements of TEN-N, which were elicited from various stakeholder groups involved in area-based conservation planning across multiple scales as part of various projects at the science-policy interface. In doing so, I will describe the role of scientific knowledge and frameworks in facilitating strategic and coordinated TEN-N planning.