Biodiversity promotion has become one of the important societal topics, which is addressed at the level of many cities and supported within the framework of many EU programmes. Within the framework of the EUI-IA initiative, the project of the Finnish city of Turku entitled “City Biodiversity Parks, City Biodiversity Parks as joint creative platforms for improving biodiversity, education and community involvement in ecological urban renewal” was supported. The city of Turku will work on this project with three higher education and research organisations, a regional government organisation, an NGO and three cities that will represent the so-called “transfer cities”, where the “transferability” of the proposed project solutions should be tested. In this context, the city of Turku has approached the city of Košice with an offer to become one of the “transfer cities” that they can support for the project. Other transfer cities are the Swedish city of Malmö and the Greek city of Neapoli-Sykies.

The main objective of the project is to create a platform for the development and testing of experimental approaches to conserve and actively enhance biodiversity in urban environments. Biodiversity parks will be developed as recreational areas, but also as experiential learning platforms. Various groups, such as local residents, NGOs, educational institutions and private actors, will be involved in the planning and implementation of activities that will help integrate biodiversity conservation as part of the maintenance and construction of urban infrastructure and increase stakeholders' awareness and capacity for biodiversity conservation. The concept will be piloted in Turku (Finland), which has the ambition to become one of the world's leading cities for nature and climate.

City of Turku (Transfer City - City of Kosice Slovakia)

To create a platform for the development and testing of experimental approaches to preserve and actively enhance biodiversity in urban environments.