Regional Mountain Conference

AlpsLife is an Interreg Alpine Space project aiming to foster transnational strategies for biodiversity conservation and restoration by improving the assessment, integration and application of biodiversity data at Alpine scale. The Alpine region represents a global biodiversity hotspot facing intensifying pressures from climate and land-use changes. Despite the ecological interconnectedness of the region, biodiversity conservation remains largely shaped by national and regional frameworks. Differences in protected area management, monitoring schemes, and data collection methods have led to fragmented biodiversity knowledge and have limited the development of coherent, large-scale conservation strategies. Addressing these limitations requires a coordinated, transnational assessment of biodiversity patterns to develop the definition of shared conservation priorities aligned with EU-level and Alpine policy instruments. This approach improves understanding of biodiversity state and trends while ensuring their relevance for decision-making at multiple governance levels.

AlpsLife aims to establish a common framework for harmonised biodiversity indicators and interoperable data across the Alpine region. EU-relevant ecological indicators are adapted to the Alpine context, tested, and evaluated. Existing long-term monitoring schemes are qualitatively and quantitatively characterized and spatially located. Scattered biodiversity datasets are progressively integrated through a common baseline to develop a shared understanding of spatial biodiversity status and trends, while ensuring alignment with the policy needs of the Alpine countries, such as strategic planning, conservation, restoration and connectivity prioritisation, and the implementation of a cross-border early warning system for biodiversity loss.

This poster presents preliminary results, illustrates initial approaches and highlights key challenges associated with handling heterogeneous biodiversity data. By presenting early outcomes and lessons learned, the poster aims to provide a platform for exchange and discussion on both the opportunities and limitations of data integration, interoperability, and transnational analyses, and to foster dialogue with other researchers and practitioners engaged in Alpine biodiversity research and conservation.