Radolfzell, 05/19/2022: The European Union is celebrating a special anniversary these days: On May 21st it will mark the thirtieth anniversary of LIFE ("L'Instrument Financier pour l'Environnement"), its program for financing nature and environmental protection measures in the EU and selected candidate, accession and neighboring countries.
A shared success story The Global Nature Fund (GNF), which implements projects and initiatives for people, water and nature worldwide from Radolfzell on Lake Constance, now shares a twenty-year history with the EU funding instrument. Since the first LIFE supported project
"Living Lakes: Sustainable Management of Wetlands and Shallow Lakes", with which the GNF started in 2002 to work for the conservation of precious European water ecosystems, it has successfully implemented or is still active in seven other projects with funding from LIFE.
"It is no exaggeration to say that the projects funded by the LIFE program go some way to defining who we are today," says Dr Thomas Schaefer, Head of Nature Conservation & Living Lakes at GNF.
"With its support, the EU has accompanied us on our way to becoming a pioneer in international lake and wetland conservation. And not only that: since the launch of the LIFE European Business & Biodiversity Campaign in 2010, at that time something completely new, we were able to raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity in many companies in a sustainable way. Today, this makes us an equally sought-after partner for companies looking for the right woody plants for biodiversity-friendly planting at their headquarters, for example, and those wanting to organize their supply chains in a deforestation-free way."Diverse projects for biodiversity and healthy waters GNF's LIFE-funded projects are diverse, and cooperation has intensified in recent years. Most recently,
"LIFE Boosting Green Infrastructure through Biodiversity-Oriented Design of Business Premises" (in short "BooGI-BOP") for green company premises started in 2018,
"LIFE Blue Lakes" for microplastic-free European inland waters in 2019 and
"LIFE Insect-Responsible Sourcing Regions" for the protection of insects and biodiversity on a landscape level in 2020. Since November 2021 the project
"Constituting a European Living Lakes Association (ELLA) empowering Civil Society Organizations to enhance and support the protection and sustainable use of aquatic ecosystems and their related biodiversity" is running, the only project in Germany.
"The EU Commission proves time and again that it is also looking beyond its European horizons by aligning the LIFE program: for example, LIFE supported one of our projects for the sustainable cultivation of shea and cocoa in Ghana, both of which are in demand as imported products in Europe," says Dr Schaefer.
"We are particularly pleased to support a current initiative that points to the future: our association ELLA is finally giving European lake and wetland conservation a firm institutional framework. In a way, it's a return to our first collaboration with LIFE in 2002." In the European Living Lakes Association, funded by the LIFE program, various European environmental associations, coordinated by GNF, advocate for the conservation of aquatic ecosystems - a signal of cooperation and confidence for the ecology and natural heritage of the continent.
About the Global Nature Fund Since 1998, the GNF has been working for nature and the environment from Radolfzell on Lake Constance. As coordinator of the worldwide network Living Lakes, GNF, together with over 130 partner organizations and 113 lakes and wetlands in 57 countries on all continents, is advancing water protection, drawing attention to the dangers threatening lakes, rivers and wetlands around the globe and developing solutions for their preservation.
Contact Global Nature Fund (GNF)
International Foundation for Environment and Nature
Dr Thomas Schaefer
Head of Nature Conservation & Living Lakes
Fritz-Reichle-Ring 4
78315 Radolfzell, Germany
+49 7732 9995 89
schaefer@globalnature.orgwww.globalnature.org