An investment of more than 110 million of euros is the latest approval of the European Commission in the projects of the LIFE program, the tool that has been in operation since 1992 to protect the care of the environment and the climate in the EU. The projects of this call contribute to the ecological recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic and support the objectives established in the European Green Deal
The projects approved on this occasion have been selected after a call for proposals that was made in 2020. Czechia, Cyprus, Denmark, Slovenia, Estonia, Finland, France, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Poland are the eleven EU countries where these investments will be ‘injected’.
LIFE, an opportunity
The European Green Deal serves to provide direct support to projects across the EU and restores nature to entire regions and countries.
The integrated projects of the LIFE Program are one of the main tools to make the ecological transition a reality by introducing concrete changes in practice.
Conservation objectives
The projects chosen by the EU have certain objectives to meet. The first of these is a project in France that pursues nature conservation, introducing measures to halt and reverse the decline of biodiversity in the Grand East region by creating three pilot forest areas. A second project will mitigate the adverse effects of human activities that threaten Finland’s marine and coastal biodiversity and improve the management of the national network of marine protected areas.
In terms of air quality, a Polish project will use measures to improve the overall air quality in the Silesia region, which has one of the most polluted atmospheres in Europe, by replacing small domestic solid-fuel heating appliances with less polluting alternatives.
With regard to waste prevention and resource recovery, in Cyprus, a project will aim to improve infrastructure and collection systems for recyclable and biodegradable waste. In Latvia, separate waste collection and reuse of municipal waste will be improved. For its part, in Denmark, a project will work on the prevention of waste and the creation of better regulations on waste. Slovenia will be the country where a project will seek to achieve a higher percentage of recycling of non-hazardous waste from construction and demolition, among other measures.
