Policy Brief — Scaling-up Nature-based Solutions into practice to enhance the resilience of Mediterranean Coastal Ecosystems and Communities — Key recommendations from a successful Initiative: RESCOM
At the forefront of climate change, the Mediterranean coasts are more than ever before the region’s most endangered areas. Sea-level rise, storms, water scarcity, and habitat degradation threaten ecosystems and coastal communities alike. The contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention and observers at COP24 in December 2025 need to urgently address the alarming effects of climate change on coastal ecosystems, communities and economies as a top priority.
Recent policy developments under the Barcelona Convention, aligning with a favorable international policy framework with clear objectives and quantified restoration targets (e.g. EU Nature Restoration Regulation), provide a perfect momentum to put in place effective tools and instruments to assist Mediterranean countries to develop and implement coordinated coastal restoration for more resilient coastal ecosystems.
In this context, the Mediterranean Biodiversity Consortium (MBC) has produced this policy brief, which provides a set of recommendations to help Parties to the Barcelona Convention scale up and operationalize Nature-based Solutions (NbS) for coastal resilience.
NbS offer integrated, cost-effective solutions to climate, biodiversity, and socio-economic challenges, delivering benefits that go beyond traditional restoration approaches (IUCN, 2020). These recommendations include:
- Elaborating and adopting a Regional Restoration Action Plan, under the Ecosystem Approach (EcAp) renewal, with quantified targets and common indicators aligned with EU and global frameworks;
- Establishing a Mediterranean Restoration and NbS Knowledge Platform under UNEP/MAP to share data, best practices, and lessons learned complementary to existing hubs;
- Securing predictable and long-term financing through innovative mechanisms that mobilize public and private resources; and
- Completing national frameworks that support effective implementation of NbS, supporting Parties with guidelines, capacity-building programs, and pilot projects to integrate NbS into cross-sectoral national planning instruments, ensuring measurable targets and accountability.
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