The international initiative for cities and conservation (II-CC) presented at the IUCN World Conservation Congress is devoted to cities and conservation in s MTEs. As most of these areas face common threats such as urbanization, deforestation, overgrazing, recreation and invasive species, this initiative aims to encourage decision makers to think of cities and their resource sheds as parts of a whole and start acting that way. The aim is to develop collaborative efforts in managing Mediterranean climate regions by bringing together experts from the five MTEs and other partners such as The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and IUCN.

While cities have tremendous impacts on nature, they also increasingly dependent on ecosystem services. Most of cities in MTEs suffer of degraded surrounding ecosystem, causing floods and landslides. The frequency of such events will increase if climate change gets worse in the coming years as scientists forecast.

The major expressions of the Mediterranean biome are the Mediterranean proper region (Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor), California, Chile, South Africa and West Australia.

To improve knowledge on how global change will impact on MTEs, a Mediterranean assessment led by The Nature Conservancy will start at the beginning of the year. This initiative aims at building a network of urban and conservation actors in metropolitan regions and increasing collaboration with city mayors. Rebecca Shaw, a scientist from TNC, called upon experts from these areas to contribute on this long term study. Interested parties can contact Rebecca Shaw on: rsahw@tnc.org.

Interesting links:
Malibu Declaration: EN - FR - ES - AR
The Nature Conservancy