Parco Fiume Brenta - LIFE Brenta 2030 project
About this good practice
Promoting good governance and innovative financing schemes for biodiversity and water conservation of Brenta river.
Main goals:
a) Implementation of green and blue infrastructure and restoration of wet habitats functional to biodiversity conservation and groundwater recharge
b) Study and implementation of a pilot funding mechanism for the conservation of water resources and biodiversity
c) Design and establishment of an innovative governance system capable of ensuring the sustainability and replicability of conservation actions and interventions
Establishment of the Payment mechanism for Ecosystem Services: The environmental fund for Brenta.
The establishment of an environmental fund for Brenta represents a so-called “Payment for Ecosystem Services” (PES), a tool that creates a new market by generating an economic exchange between those responsible for providing an ecosystem service (ie a benefit produced by the environment for humans) and those who use it (for example citizens or private companies).
The novelty of the tool lies in the fact that it generally benefits from free ecosystem services, while it would be right for those who pollute or those who use a natural resource to contribute to its maintenance and improvement.
The idea of the environmental fund arises from the introduction of the Environmental and Resource Costs (ERC) in the legislation of the water sector (2000/60 / EC, DM n.39 / 2015), which, must be calculated and included in the water tariff.
Resources needed
Co-funded by the LIFE – Nature and Biodiversity Programme of the European Union
Total Budget: 2,632,580 €. EU Contribution: 1,578,949 €
Co-funders: 14 municipalities
Evidence of success
The LIFE Brenta 2030 project helps the integration of the water basin plan (Piano d’Ambito) within the context of Natura 2000 site «Grave e zone umide del Brenta». This innovative approach lays the foundations for the integration of the different territorial management plans, and allows a process of creating an effective governance that is able to integrate anthropogenic needs with a correct management of protected sites.
Potential for learning or transfer
The strong partnership and the working group significantly help to achieve the sustainability challenge of the water sector. The success of the entire process of ERC recovery necessarily requires the involvement of all the actors of the drinking water supply chain: the Drinking Water Authority, the multi-utility and any other companies that purchase or distribute drinking water. The involvement of the latter is functional to recover the ERC also from users outside the geographic area of application of the water tariff approved by the Drinking Water Authority. All users of the resource must contribute to the compensation of the environmental impacts caused in the water abstraction area according to the “polluter/user pays” principle.
Further information
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