ECOlogical VINEyards GOvernance Activities for Landscape's Strategies

In ADRION area the intensive management of viticulture can lead to negative effects on soil, water and air quality, biodiversity and ecosystem services and cause significant changes of fragile habitats and traditional landscapes. ECOVINEGOALS tackles the challenge of viticulture intensive systems and its negative effects. The project helps develop strategies, action plans, tools and capacities for agro-ecological transition of viticulture areas towards low input and low emission management systems. As main outputs, the project elaborates 3 different transnational strategies:
1) One focused on agro ecological cultivation systems to support their diffusion in the fragile wine-growing areas of ADRION regions.
2) One aimed at reconciling viticulture with other competing land uses and with the conservation of landscapes and habitats.
3) One aimed at applying participated territorial governance processes to improve the stakeholders’ capacity to use negotiation and conflict resolution models for environment and landscape protection.
The expected changes are achieved by acting through pilot initiatives and local action plans. These guarantee to share technical knowledge, evaluate ecosystem services coming from the agro-ecological approach and strengthen the participatory capacity of policy makers. The transnational and interdisciplinary dimension of the partnership allows to achieve long-lasting results such as the constitution of a new innovative transnational network (AVINE) in the Adrion area and the participation to already existing EU networks that support the definition of project main outputs referred to agro-ecological practices, landscape and habitat protection, active participation and social awareness. Ultimately, the project contributes to ongoing implementation at EU and national level of EU policies such as the EUSAIR, the Common Food Policy and Bioeconomy Strategy, as well as the priorities defined in the EU Commission Staff Working Document FOOD 2030.Level of capacity of the involved organisations to operate transnational, providing service and management regarding environmental vulnerability, fragmentation, and the safeguarding of ecosystems’ servicesThe main expected results of this project are as follows.
A) The sharing between partners of the ADRION countries involved, of fundamental concepts and tools necessary for transition of the intensive wine systems, widespread in these areas, towards agroecological management methods. Agroecological approaches, in fact, prevent contamination of environment, enrich biodiversity, enhance the landscape and the local habitat, develop ecosystem services and reduce emissions responsible for climate change (greenhouse effect).
B) Improvement skills of decision makers and stakeholders, public and private, in participatory involvement of all those interested in an agroecological transition of cultivation systems and in shared definition of strategies and development plans aimed at protecting habitats and rural landscapes.
C) Greater cooperation, exchange and transnational communication between regional authorities (NUTS2 and NUTS3 levels) and civil society organizations (business associations, research structures, cultural awareness and vocational training) towards shared objectives of protection of environmental vulnerability, promotion of ecosystem services, prevention of climate change, prevention of social conflicts in land use.
D) Increase in number and quality of tools and strategies able to support, with a transnational vision, the planning and management of an agroecological transition of local viticultural systems, the formation of the skills necessary for this purpose and the participative management of territorial governance decisions.
These project results are directly related to the program results, which include support for transnational cooperation networks to address the environmental vulnerability, and to increase the number of strategies and actions in the field of environmental protection.