In the frame of the Interreg Europe project „PROGRESS: PROmoting the Governance of Regional Ecosystem ServiceS” on January 22th, 2020 the first local stakeholders meeting took place.

At this meeting, project manager Dr. oec. Sanda Geipele introduced the project aim and its activities in the context of Interreg Europe programme, as well as projects that are eligible for participants – regions for learning capacity building and policy learning, supporting the exchange of experiences between stakeholders and involving experts. The project researcher Dipl. ing. Mg. oec. Jānis Zvirgzdiņš presented the essence, examples and topicality of the project good practice in accordance with the four thematic study cycles foreseen in the project.

The participants were informed that RTU will coordinate experience exchange activities in four thematic cycles of the project, which includes already developed good practice analysis methodology, by which criteria will be identified, and analyzed good practice examples by involving stakeholders. RTU will also collect good practice examples from all partner regions and issue four good practice guides in accordance with the thematic study cycles foreseen in the project.

During the meeting, the participants discussed interregional thematic and training seminars, as well as a project interregional training seminar and experience exchange visit to Latvia planned in June 2020. The participants also shared their experiences on possible good practices in Latvia for the first thematic cycle of training – to facilitate the assessment of the costs and benefits of ecosystem services in the context of land use.

PROGRESS is an interregional cooperation project and its’ objective is to initiate a process of policy change in the partners’ regions improving the implementation of the policy instruments under Structural Funds programmes and other regional strategies dedicated to the conservation of biodiversity and the maintaining nature’s capacity to deliver the goods and services that we all need, through policy learning and capacity building activities. Project implementation from Latvian side is done by Riga Technical University (RTU) Institute of the civil engineering and real estate economics (BUNI).

Oficial home page of the project: www.interregeurope.eu/progress

For more information: INTERREG EU – Progress