In Europe we face a number of serious challenges to protect our natural heritage and to make our use of natural resources sustainable. Although we have an extensive network of protected areas, the vast majority of biodiversity is found outside them. We have seen massive declines in biodiversity and equivalent declines in the ability of ecosystems to provide the services so needed by our communities. Restoring this balance requires the active participation of all sectors of society and we have to become increasingly clever in how we integrate environmental concerns into all sectors of resource use. A critical component of this is how our natural resources are managed and we would like to present a pan-European project that is identifying the different ways in which we can sustainably manage our natural resources.

GEM-CON-BIO (Governance and ecosystems management for the conservation of biodiversity) explores the interactions between different methods for the management, ownership and use of natural resources currently employed in Europe and globally to identify which processes and institutions can best contribute to the conservation of biodiversity.

GEM-CON-BIO conducted research on a series of case studies across the globe, which are managed in different ways (e.g. private ownership, public authority, community management etc), to compare the "success" and "failure" of different biodiversity conservation approaches. Based on this, the project also developed policy recommendations and approaches for sustainable development. The project results are being fed into policy processes at the local, regional, national, and international level.

GEM-CON-BIO is an FP6 funded project under Priority 7 - Citizens and Governance in a knowledge-based society. It ran from February 2006 to April 2008, and brought together 12 partners from Greece, Sweden, UK, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Romania, Iran, Indonesia, and Bolivia.