Biodiversity sustaining carbon management in degraded lands and cut-away peatlands in Northern periphery and Arctic regions

Programme 2021 - 2027 Interreg VI-B Northern Periphery and Arctic

Date of latest update: 2025-09-24

Description

Description (EN):

Globally, carbon capture should be increased maintaining biodiversity at the same time. In Northern periphery (NP), there are degraded and neglected areas whose utilization could be developed towards efficient carbon capture. In Finland cut-away peatlands are underutilized areas due to the changing energy policy. In Iceland serious environmental problem is the loss of vegetation by wind erosion and in Norway the cultural landscape includes areas that are intensively farmed such as coastal heaths but could be harnessed for carbon farming, too. These areas could be rediscovered for carbon capture and utilization for climate change adaptation; for ex. short rotation coppicing in the cut-away peatlands. Sustainable exploitation of targeted project lands and fields in NP, needs implementation models that benefit landowners and policy makes and biodiversity, too. Project aim is to build up operational model for the Northern periphery to re-utilize these areas for carbon capture and utilization (CCU) in the biodiversity maintaining way. Sustainability covers the cooperation of stakeholders, encourages entrepreneurship development for improved regional economy and maintain biodiversity. To succeed with this, landowners needs incomes to maintain the synergy between carbon management and biodiversity sustaining. This is the unique aspect of our project: to synergize effective CCU and develop existing biodiversity indicator system at the same. Presently there are difficulties to estimate the biodiversity effects as the schemes of CCU in biological systems are hardly meeting existing biodiversity indicator classifications. With the transnational co-operation, beneficial development of sparsely populated communities in Northern periphery is achieved, and results in innovative solutions for carbon capture and utilization. Concrete result from the project is procedure to plan the sustainable utilization of these areas with common awareness of possibilities and threats gained.

Actual Achievements (EN):

Objective for the preparatory project BioDiver was to develop Main project application for Project "Biodiversity sustaining carbon management in degraded lands and cut-away peatlands in Northern periphery and Arctic regions". Idea of the project is to build up operational models for the Northern periphery to re-utilize these degraded areas in a sustainable way. Sustainability covers all aspects of sustainability: environmental, economic and social in the forms of carbon capture and biodiversity sustaining, regional economy. To succeed with this, it has to be clear that landowners of the degraded lands are provided with models for livelihood possibilities to synergizing carbon management and biodiversity sustaining and indicators to prove it. In the preparatory project, it was possible to define bacground and stakeholder groups involved in these degraded areas and their utilization. Also, for background, overview of policies and example lands were possible to define and definition "nature management" was taken into use. As a result, four nature management schemes were found as interesting for sustainable degraded land reutilization schemes: restoration, recreation and well-being, agriculture and sustainable energy and bioproducts. From these schemes, four value chains were chosen for economic analysis and biodiversity indicators development on degraded lands: rehabilitation, ecotourism, regenerative agriculture and short rotation forestry.

Website: https://www.interreg-npa.eu/projects/biodiver/

Thematic information

Climate change and biodiversity

Priority: (VI-B_NPaA_2) Strengthening the capacity for climate change adaptation, and resource sufficiency in NPA communities

Priority specific objective: RSO2.4. Promoting climate change adaptation and disaster risk prevention and resilience, taking into account eco-system based approaches

Priority policy objective (Interreg specific objective): PO2 A greener, low-carbon transitioning towards a net zero carbon economy and resilient Europe by promoting clean and fair energy transition, green and blue investment, the circular economy, climate change mitigation and adaptation, risk prevention and management, and sustainable urban mobility

Type of intervention: 058 Adaptation to climate change measures and prevention and management of climate related risks: floods and landslides (including awareness raising, civil protection and disaster management systems, infrastructures and ecosystem based approaches)

Partners (3)

Lead Partner: Itä-Suomen Yliopisto

Partner’s ID if not PIC: FI22857339

Department: School of Forest Sciences

Address: Yliopistokatu , 80100 Joensuu, Finland

Department address: Yliopistokatu , 80100 Joensuu, Finland

Legal status: public

Organisation type: Higher education and research organisations

Website: https://www.uef.fi/en/

Total budget: EUR 49 945.00

Partner’s programme co-financing: EUR 32 464.25

Partner’s programme co-financing rate: 65.00%

Partner contribution: EUR 17 480.75

Landbúnaðarháskóli Íslands

Name: Landbúnaðarháskóli Íslands

Department: Faculty of Natural and Environmental Sciences

Partner’s ID if not PIC: 988542036

Address: Hvanneyri, 311 Borgarbyggð, Iceland

Department address: Árleynir , 112 Reykjavík, Iceland

Legal status: public

Organisation type: Higher education and research organisations

Website: https://lbhi.is

Total budget: EUR 24 570.00

Partner’s programme co-financing: EUR 15 970.50

Partner’s programme co-financing rate: 65.00%

Partner contribution: EUR 8 599.50

Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet

Name: Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet

Department: Department of Natural History, NTNU University Museum

Partner’s ID if not PIC: 999977851

Address: Postboks, Torgarden, 7491 Trondheim, Norway

Department address: Erling Skakkes gate, 7491 Trondheim, Norway

Legal status: public

Organisation type: Higher education and research organisations

Total budget: EUR 24 570.00

Partner’s programme co-financing: EUR 12 285.00

Partner’s programme co-financing rate: 50.00%

Partner contribution: EUR 12 285.00

Partners map

Partners and Projects info

Agricultural University of Iceland

Biodiversity sustaining carbon management in degraded lands and cut-away peatlands in Northern periphery and Arctic regions

Partners and Projects info

NTNU

Biodiversity sustaining carbon management in degraded lands and cut-away peatlands in Northern periphery and Arctic regions

Partners and Projects info

University of Eastern Finland

Biodiversity sustaining carbon management in degraded lands and cut-away peatlands in Northern periphery and Arctic regions

Lead partner

Project partner

Summary

Project name (EN): Biodiversity sustaining carbon management in degraded lands and cut-away peatlands in Northern periphery and Arctic regions

Project acronym: BioDiver

Project ID: NPA0200079

Project start date: 2022-12-01

Project end date: 2023-11-30

Project status: closed

Relevant linked projects:

CityZen. Enhancing scalable innovations and new business models based on urban farming ecosystem. values- project. Interreg project. Ongoing (EN) | Looking for good practices which could be modified for us. CityZen’s main outputs spell out in 5 Action Plans for policy change in each region, a good practices ‘marketplace’, accelerators for policy makers, serious gaming by a JRC SES technique and compelling guidelines on how urban farming changes city landscapes. (EN), Prospera project. PROmoting Sustainable development and regional attractiveness through PERi-urban Areas. Interreg project. Ongoing (EN) | Looking for good practices which could be modified for us. (EN), Reaching congenial region through valorization of municipal and industrial waste waters and sludge. Interreg project. Ended (EN) | Analysis of the demos done in that project (EN), Catch the carbon. Carbon neutral utilization of used peatlands. Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Finland. Ongoing (EN) | Information about land areas and use of cut-away peatlands (EN)

Total budget/expenditure: EUR 99 085.00

Total EU funding (amount): EUR 32 464.25

Total EU funding (co-financing rate): 65.00%

Co-financing sources:

ERDF: Amount, EUR 32 464.25. Co-financing rate, 65.00%.
ERDF equivalent: Amount, EUR 12 285.00. Co-financing rate, 50.00%. Sources, NO.
ERDF equivalent: Amount, EUR 15 970.50. Co-financing rate, 65.00%. Sources, IS.

Investments, deliverables, policy contributions

(bullets are inserted automatically and may be incorrectly placed)

Deliverables:

Partnership engaging for Main project application
Stakeholder analysis
Land type description for Main project application
Land change and biodiversity scenarios development for Main Project application
Policy report for Main project application
Carbon markets report for Main project application
Main project application

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

Financing programme

2021 - 2027 Interreg VI-B Northern Periphery and Arctic

Last month that data in keep.eu was retrieved from the Programme's website or received from the Programme

2025-09-24

No. of projects in keep.eu / Total no. of projects (% of projects in keep.eu)

65 / 65 (100%)

No. of project partnerships in keep.eu / Total no. of project partnerships (% of project partnerships in keep.eu)

310 / 310 (100%)

Notes on the data

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Biodiversity sustaining carbon management in degraded lands and cut-away peatlands in Northern periphery and Arctic regions

Description

Thematic information

Partners (3)

Partners map

Summary

Investments, deliverables, policy contributions

Information regarding the data in keep.eu on the programme financing this project

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