Final Evaluation M6 – Promoting Sustainable Land Use Practices In Mediterranean Cultural Landscapes 2017-2022

🌿 The Alliance for Mediterranean Nature & Culture (AMNC) shares the vision of a Mediterranean region where cultural practices and cultural landscapes contribute effectively to conserving biodiversity and maintaining the well-being of communities.

🐞Our mission is to recognise, promote and sustain practices that maintain these landscapes, underpinned by our belief that nature and culture are profoundly interconnected and together deliver environmental, social and economic benefits to society.

13 organisations their forces in 2017 to collectively conserve the cultural landscapes and practices of the Mediterranean in:
⛰️three mountain/high altitude sites characterised by traditional farming, grazing, agroforestry and water management practices: the High Atlas mountains of Morocco, Shouf Biosphere Reserve, West Bekaa and Mount Lebanon in Lebanon, and the Taurus mountains in Turkey
🏝️two lowland sites characterised by traditional agro-silvo-pastoral systems: the corridor stretching from Extremadura and Córdoba, Spain, to Coruche in Santarém, Portugal, Kroumirie Mogod, Northwestern Tunisia and Livanjsko Polje in Bosnia-Herzegovina
🌾two island sites characterised by a mosaic of traditional farming, livestock breeding and water management: the islands of Lemnos, Greece and Menorca, Spain

🐝 We support and protect cultural landscapes of high ecological value in the Mediterranean. Since 2017, we have worked with various stakeholders, including local communities, practitioners, scientists and policy-makers. Collaborating with them in diverse contexts and landscapes provided us with some key learnings that shed light on our ongoing and future work:

🌿 Blending scientific knowledge with traditional ecological knowledge and translating this into action in the field is critical, and collecting regular feedback from the field was also essential.
⛰️ Working in pilot sites, regardless of size, allowed us to prove the validity of our approach and helped us to scale impact significantly.
🏝️ Community-based approaches such as land stewardship, Himas, and Agdals proved to be essential for successful governance, and sharing these approaches amongst partners was a critical part of building capacity.
🦋 Exploring the themes of cultural landscapes and cultural practices provided great opportunities to communicate and address global environmental, social and economic challenges.

Our joint work has led to increased knowledge of how cultural landscapes and practices benefit biodiversity and the livelihoods of local communities. Here we share some of our achievements and impacts on the ground:
👩‍🌾 Establishing 5 networks and 123 land stewardship agreements with local farmers in Spain, Greece and Lebanon.
⛰️ Participatory governance and management plans in Lebanon (4 new Himas) and Morocco (2 Agdals).
🌿 Across our sites, 46,000 people are implementing a diversity of cultural practices, and the area under sustainable land management has reached 50,000 ha.
🍒 Our members have created and applied 5 certification and labelling systems, achieving better positioning for local products, improved branding, and marketing and support direct sales, involving, for example, 26 communities in the High Atlas, 37 farms in Menorca, 44 farms in Lemnos and Kythera.
📄 The results of our research have been used for advocacy, with significant impacts at global, international, national and local site-levels.

We are Shouf Biosphere ReserveANP/WWFEuroNatur FoundationGlobal Diversity FoundationGOB MenorcaIUCN Centre for Mediterranean CooperationMediterranean Institute for Nature and Anthropos (MedINA)Moroccan Biodiversity & Livelihoods Association – MBLASociety for the Protection of Nature in LebanonTour du ValatWWF-TunisieWWF EspañaYolda Initiative.

To read the final evaluation report of our collective impact 👉 https://bit.ly/3FSOFvL

Feel free to contact us if you are interested in conserving nature together with local communities.
www.mednatureculture.org
#MedNatureCulture

*The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on the map do not imply any official endorsement, acceptance or opinion by the AMNC and its member organisations that contributed to this work.

Al Hima Magazine 5th Issue

This edition of Al Hima magazine weaves together inspiring stories of nature conservation and community resilience, highlighting how Lebanon is being stitched back to life—one Hima at a time. The Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL) continues its mission to preserve the country’s natural heritage by empowering local communities. A cornerstone of this effort is the BioConnect project, funded by the European Union, which has achieved three national firsts: Lebanon’s first natural park (Upper Matn), first geological park (Shouf-Jezzine), and first endowment Hima (Btekhnay).

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