The Natural Heritage Mission organised its Community of Practice gathering on the 2nd and 3rd of July 2025, in Athens, Greece. The host of the event was the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), a partner of the Community4Nature Project.
It was the occasion for the Natural Heritage Mission’s 16 Thematic Projects, 2 Governance projects (Community4Nature and Dialogue4Nature), and a selection of mostly Greek Associated Partners to meet in person, exchange updates on the progress of their activities, launch new clusters, and build joint policy messages.
On the first day, the Natural Heritage Mission had the occasion to launch the 2025 Solve The Challenge campaign on “Environmental Governance”. Following, an overview of the progress regarding the ‘Amplification Room’ portfolio of services was presented, along with the first Community’s results coming from WE GO COOP and FRED Thematic Projects. The Tools for Environmental Governance cluster (launched just one week before) was presented and participants were encouraged to join it. The day ended with a policy session on messages that the Mission would like to address during the upcoming Institutional Dialogue Event in Barcelona in November and the UfM Regional Forum.
On the second day, in the morning, the members of the Community of Practice were divided into groups and took part in parallel sessions. One of the parallel sessions hosted a meeting for communication officers. Four of them were dedicated to the launch of the clustering process for four thematic pillars, namely:
- Adaptation to climate change in coastal areas
- Tools for Disaster Risk Reduction
- Forest management
- Nature-based Solutions for flood regulation
The last parallel session was a ‘European Maritime Day In My Country’ workshop on Governance solutions for Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas, co-organised by NTUA and NECCA (Mission’s Associated Partner) and with the contribution of ARTEMIS, COASTRUST, GreenList4MMPAs, and MedSeaRise Thematic Projects. During this workshop, in addition to the above ongoing Interreg Euro-MED Projects, 6 more EU-funded projects had the opportunity to be presented, i.e., LIFE EL BIOS, MedEOS, TUNE UP, PosBeMed2, LIFE TRANSFER, and INVALIS, and exchange ideas and opinions with the participants.
In the afternoon, the entire Community of Practice came together to assess its contributions to SDGs through the TPs’ activities and to participate in the ‘marketplace activity’, aiming to foster synergies and potential adoption of solutions focused on Greek Pilot cases.
The meeting put together 82 people from 45 different organisations and 8 countries. It set the Community’s steps for ongoing, already planned, and future activities. Read some of the messages participants shared regarding their experience:
- For future events, maintaining the same level of clarity in communication and encouraging even more interactive sessions would enhance the overall experience.
- The methodology followed so far in the events of the Mission is very good and encourages participants to follow up, learn, communicate, and collaborate with other participants.
