The Alliance for Mediterranean Nature and Culture (AMNC), created in 2021, englobes 13 organisations which joined forces to support the conservation of Mediterranean cultural landscapes after seeing the benefits they have for the ecosystem and biodiversity, and for the people who live and work sustainably on the sites. The aim of the AMNC is to strengthen the knowledge on linkages between biodiversity and cultural land use practices around the Mediterranean basin, and advocate for the enhanced environmental, social and economic benefits for biodiversity and the livelihoods of local people.
The AMNC promotes the improvement of enabling conditions such as favourable governance frameworks, supportive value chains and greater market access for products from cultural landscapes, and promotes greater public, decision-makers’ and consumer awareness on the value of sustainable production systems for biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. Our ultimate goal is to increase the surface area of selected cultural landscapes, as well as to halt the loss of beneficial traditional land use practices and demonstrate their role in supporting biodiversity conservation, social wellbeing and economic sustainability.
Since 2017, partners of the AMNC have been working to foster cultural practices as a way to contribute to the environmental, social and economic sustainability of Mediterranean cultural landscapes. Partners work in different project sites that include a wide range of landscapes (rangelands-grasslands, steppes, forests, mountains, wetlands, drylands, deserts) and cultural practices. Thanks to the local and regional projects carried out, partners of the AMNC were able to generate a meaningful impact towards reducing the loss of biodiversity through forest and agro-ecosystem protection, land restoration, soil and water management, and climate change mitigation/adaptation.
You can read the full Impact Report of our work for 2017-2022 here. The report describes our approach and strategies, and presents our collective impact on biodiversity conservation, economic resilience and social sustainability.