PALERMO – The National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC), Italy’s first national research center for biodiversity, hosted at the University of Palermo, opened on Thursday.
The announcement was by the Council for Research in Agriculture and Agrarian Economy Analysis (CREA), which is taking part in the project.
The center, provided for the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), CREA said, focuses on biodiversity: a priority at both the national and international levels.
It does so through a network coordinated by the National Research Council (CNR) comprising 48 partners including universities, research bodies, foundations, and enterprises that were selected on the basis of their proven scientific, technological, ethical, and market leadership.
The project foresees financing of over 320 million euros for the first three years (2023-2025) and the involvement of over 1,300 researchers from the partners involved.
The center will carry out research and foster the development of solutions to monitor, preserve and restore functional biodiversity in order to counter climate change while supporting research and innovation as well as the circular and restoration economy.
The center focuses on the Mediterranean – a “hotspot” of biodiversity – and deals with global challenges concerning the protection and rehabilitation of marine, coastal, and land ecosystems.
Using a multidisciplinary approach, the center will find effective strategies to reduce anthropic pressure on ecosystems, species, and populations, in part through supporting and developing biobanks, fostering the creation and aggregation of protected areas and green infrastructures and finding technological and managerial solutions able to add environmental, social, and economic value.
The center will also deal with emerging issues closely connected with the well-being of humans, such as forestation and urban regeneration and the finding of nature-based solutions able to mitigate socio-environmental problems such as pollution, environmental calamities, and global warming.
The One Health approach also provides an integrated vision of all components of biodiversity for security and well-being and fosters the development of new professional figures able to deal with contemporary challenges, or ‘green jobs’.
credits: ANSA
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