MCRV Mission

The National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC) focuses on the Mediterranean region, considered a biodiversity hotspot, in order to address global challenges related to the following:

-Knowledge and protection of Italian biodiversity;
-Monitoring of different species, including rare, endangered and exotic pest species;
-Development of appropriate 'Restoration Ecology' strategies also with the aim of achieving the goals of the Nature Restoration Law;
-Enhancement of biodiversity through innovation actions that produce economic, environmental and social value.
Through targeted research and adoption of new technologies, NBFC provides intervention bodies and territorial administrations with the scientific basis for the establishment and management of protected areas, the design and implementation of efficient monitoring systems, the implementation of ecological restoration programs, and the enhancement of biodiversity to obtain new food, medical, cosmetics, and new materials. An entire sector of the center is dedicated to innovation, the involvement of national and international companies and institutions to support sustainable production processes, stimulate the creation of start-ups and expand green jobs. In this area, the center works with industrial supply chains by identifying process innovations and studying innovative biotechnological solutions that make it possible to promote circular productions, enhancing the value of raw materials and revitalizing strategic sectors for Italy such as the nursery sector, fishing, aquaculture and the production of bioactive compounds. The NBFC is therefore proposed as a national and international reference for generating knowledge and value from biodiversity and transferring them to the territory with the aim of implementing ecosystem services, promoting the well-being of people and generating social and environmental economic value for society.

Conservation

Ecosystems are rapidly shifting to new ecological states. Achieving effective conservation of biodiversity has become challenging because of both global and local stressors and continuous shifts in national and international policies. The NBFC has been conceived to move forward the conservation of the Italian biodiversity assets and to put them on the road to recovery by 2030, thus reaching the targets set by the EU Biodiversity Strategy. This will be achieved through:

(1) Improving the knowledge about the state of biodiversity across different biodiversity levels. This effort will support the development of priorities and planning scenarios to improve protection regimes at species/habitat level within protected areas (PAs sensu lato; e.g. fully and partially protected areas, national parks, regional parks/reserves), Natura 2000 Sites, Other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) (e.g fisheries restricted areas FRAs) and in currently unprotected areas of conservation interest (i.e. enlarging the coverag of protected areas to 30%, with 10% under strict protection regimes); and also in urban and periurban area promoting biodiversity conservation and connection with parks and protected areas
(2) Strengthening an effective network of the already existing PAs through innovative approaches of data collection, labelling, and analysis, with the support of key enabling technologies (i.e. Artificial Intelligence, new technologies applied to monitoring); (3) Integrating the human dimension and the effects of climate change into existing protection frameworks.

One of the first important goals of NBFC is the definition of suitable conservation strategies for different national areas. Specifically, the goal of conservation actions are to secure the maintaining of biological diversity at the genetic, species, population, and ecosystem levels also in response to abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic stressors. Among all its activities NBFC is producing maps and models, prioritising sites for consolidated monitoring, and providing, at the end of the project, an overview of high-level recommendations for land, sea and urban areas. Specific projects have been developed to improve the biodiversity knowledge in terms of identification and characterization of the taxa present in the area under study. Conservation of biodiversity should be upscaled at an ecosystem level. In this context it is necessary both to develop adequate tools for investigations and to assess ecosystem response to biodiversity conservation.

Research and innovation are aimed at developing new tools together with the application of strategies for the conservation and the management of biodiversity in the national context also in relation to local environmental settings, territorial criticalities and the guidelines in force.