Transformative biodiversity initiatives in the spotlight

With the world breaking all the wrong records and the science stressing the need to mitigate the climate crisis and biodiversity loss louder than ever, it is high time to investigate current unique initiatives that are part of the solution rather than the problem.

Therefore, within BIONEXT, a research and innovation project that joins the fight for nature and biodiversity, a group of researchers dived into a sea of on-going initiatives across several countries to identify and shed light on those that are transformational. What does it mean?

Building on various definitions of transformative processes, the aim was to select those initiatives that focused on:

Transformative change: The initiatives move beyond just fixing problems and instead fundamentally shift how we interact with the natural world. These changes have the potential to generate fundamental shifts in our mindsets, policies, and practices.
Biodiversity nexus: The initiatives centre on biodiversity and demonstrate the diverse, intertwined relationships between people and nature. Besides focusing on solutions to biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, they further help solve issues interlinked with water, food, energy, health, climate, and transport. The cross-sectoral approach of such smartly designed initiatives helps tackle several pressing problems at once.

With more than 60 transformative cases identified, let’s have a look at those in our region – Czechia and Slovakia! Before moving forward, one disclaimer: This list of transformative initiatives is not exhaustive and was never meant to be. If you are familiar with a transformative initiative that fits the criteria above and is missing from our list, please share in the comments below! Thank you 😊

Illustration of the biodiversity nexus that demonstrates the interlinkages between biodiversity, water, food, climate, energy, transport, and health. Copyright: BIONEXT project.

Transformative initiatives

Tackling unsustainable forest management

We are the Forest (My sme les) – The initiative holistically assesses the state of the forests, various policies and reforms, as well as potentially dangerous narratives regarding, for instance, the necessity to shoot wild bears or wolves. It creates momentum to help precious ecosystems in the long-term, both in the field as well as in courtrooms.
Forest Conservation Group WOLF (Lesoochranárske zoskupenie VLK) – The aim of this initiative is to protect natural forests and systematically create a network of strictly protected interference-free areas. It takes action in several ways, most significantly by entering legal processes to stress the absurdity of various exceptions that allow tree felling in the most precious areas of forest; at the same time, the initiative buys land to protect forests and forest biodiversity directly.

Bringing biodiversity back – and for the public to support and enjoy

Czech Landscape (Česká krajina) – Focusing on establishing non-state natural reservations interconnected by bio-corridors that allow the survival of endangered flora and fauna, this initiative brings back wild horses, bison, and bred-back aurochs, animals once native to the Czech lands but eliminated in the past hundred years. The ungulates help restore biodiversity lost to intensive agriculture and military activities.
Bird Reserves of the Czech Society for Ornithology – The initiative aims to enable the return of especially wetland birds to formerly flooded meadows. The restoration of land (meadows, rivers, lakes), which made possible by the public or private actors thanks to donors, further enables other species, such as endangered invertebrate species, to flourish. The initiative also tries to restore agricultural land, cooperate with farmers, and transform unsustainably used land into biodiversity-rich areas open to public.

Urban Action with Biodiversity in the Center

Vnitrobloky – The NGO Bieno was set up, via its initiative Vnitrobloky, to bring life to enclosed inner semi-public courtyards surrounded by buildings and open to the sky (called “vnitrobloky”). The aim is to bring biodiversity into the yards, create urban gardens, contribute to climate adaptation, and also bring locals together.

Screws from Ústí (Ústecké šrouby)- The initiative consists of members who are following legal and administrative proceedings in the Ústí nad Labem region (the most underdeveloped region of Czechia with a significant coal mining history and presence) in order to bring attention to those processes that have a negative impact on biodiversity. The initiative, powered by the enthusiasm of a few, has taken in over 3000 administrative procedures and won 20 lawsuits, bringing attention to many biodiversity-relevant wrongdoings as well as bringing together local communities and expert knowledge. Talk about impact!

Water is life and life is biodiversity

Silezika – Silezika, operating in Silesia, is an initiative that focuses primarily on nature and landscape conservation by systematically creating and maintaining biotopes (pools, orchards, linear communities, woodlands). What more, it has a long history of training and subsequently employing participants in the establishment of low-maintenance production ecosystems, planting and maintenance of linear communities.
Living Landscape (Živá krajina) – Focusing on the development of a universally applicable methodological tool to help restore the Czech (and also the EU) landscape, the initiative is transformational as it holistically works with water management, soil health, land management, and knowledge-sharing. Citizens, farmers, authorities and other stakeholders are involved.

Action – collective and individual

Land Trusts (Pozemkové spolky) – The largest grass-root private/community-based biodiversity conservation endeavours in Czechia that take care of the land they own or have a long-term legal relationship to it, and are organised under the Czech Union for Nature Conservation. They complement public biodiversity conservation, functioning on a voluntary basis, aiming directly at land conservation to protect biodiversity.
Radim Pešek’s Fruit tree genetic bank – A fruit grower from Bojkovice in the White Carpathians, Radim Pešek founded a fruit nursery where he grows old varieties of apple and pear trees, lesser-known fruit species and new resistant fruit varieties. The genetic bank is unique in the Czech context – it contains about 30 species of apple trees, 15 species of pear trees, plum trees, cherry trees, lesser-known fruit trees, and new resistant fruit varieties and rare wild species!