Bringing the Avant-Garde of Biodiversity Solutions to Budapest
We have talked a lot about biodiversity in urban areas lately. But we sometimes forget that green areas are not only important for fighting or mitigating the climate crisis – they also enhance our lived environments. Whether through their beauty or their effect on mental health or by creating freely accessible public spaces, such green areas are also an immediate benefit to us all.
In the URBIO BAUHAUS Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme project, lead by the Wrocław University of Science and Technology of Environmental and Life Sciences, sustainability, participation and aesthetics are combined in accordance with New European Bauhaus principles. In this project, we as BURST participate “as a supporting 'city-buddy' partner to the Municipality of Érd (similar to the pairs formed with the other three cities (Kranj, Pula, and Wrocław)”, explains our project manager Mihály Kondacs . Érd is a city with country rights in the Budapest metro area, which has experienced rapid growth in the last decade, creating difficult urban challenges and resulting in a loss of biodiversity. “We help Érd identify green transformation priorities using New European Bauhaus (NEB) approaches and a shared transnational methodology. We assist Érd in creating an Implementation Plan for urban biodiversity interventions and conducting peer reviews with Wrocław.”
As Mihály explains: “URBIO BAUHAUS aims to combat biodiversity decline in urban and peri-urban areas in Central Europe by leveraging the New European Bauhaus (NEB) core values of sustainability, inclusion and aesthetics into urban biodiversity solutions as part of the wider urban transformation enabling sustainable, inclusive and resilient society. Developed solutions will incorporate citizens' visions into design plans seeking an answer to the question of how to achieve citizen's perception change from being ambivalent to being active urban biodiversity fans.”
The latter is a key point. If citizens are uninterested or worse, hostile towards biodiversity solutions, their maintenance will be costly if not downright impossible. However, by creating widespread enthusiasm around biodiversity, citizens will be invested in their upkeep and future.
In order to support that, BURST is also part of cross-border efforts to promote biodiversity. “Within the project we also promote URBIO BAUHAUS results across Central Europe and the EU, ensuring knowledge transfer and inspiring replication through networking and international events. Our goal is to bridge local action with European-scale sustainability efforts”, explains Mihály. But it is important to recognise that, more often than not, Hungary should take a more listening role in these conversations. Our country is, unfortunately, not yet a biodiversity champion, and we have a lot to learn in this regard.
That’s why we find it important to share that the next in-person meeting of URBIO BAUHAUS will take place in Budapest. The Municipality of Budapest will also be present as an associated partner, also seeking synergies between URBIO BAUHAUS and their LIFE project Biodiverse City. There will be a lot to discuss: “As the first guiding document for the setup and operation of the local BIOCENTUM nodes are available to use, the consortium needs to discuss it in details. Meanwhile until May 2025 we aim to prepare the New European Bauhaus+ compass which will present New European Bauhaus values, integration aspect, transnational aspect and working principles with adding one biodiversity aspect as novel approach to existing Bauhaus initiative; and the Implementation Plans for each city (including technical documents, permissions, feasibility and other preparatory studies needed). These will all be exciting developments and will shape the future work of the project, so we look forward to the meeting!”
But perhaps the most important is that such discussions can take place here, in Central Europe, representing the role that our region needs to take in the green transition.