Climate change poses significant risks to biodiversity, particularly within and around protected areas. Understanding and responding to these risks is becoming a core challenge for protected area managers and conservation planners.

This webinar will present insights from the NaturaConnect project, which explores how climate risk metrics can inform conservation strategies across Europe. The project assesses future climatic exposure for the period 2041–2070, using three complementary indicators: local climate velocity, analogue climate velocity, and climate magnitude. Together, these metrics help to understand the speed, direction, and intensity of climate shifts. By interpreting these metrics in combination, practitioners can for example identify areas where species movement is likely to occur or climate refugia. The webinar will provide an overview of the applied methodology, enabling participants to understand the principles behind climate risk metrics and their practical relevance.

In addition, we will hear from the LIFE RedBosques project, which over the past four years has developed and applied climate vulnerability assessments to strengthen forest resilience. As part of this work, a drought risk assessment index has been developed to identify the aspects of forest structure and functions most closely linked to vulnerability. Based on this assessment, actions have been designed in three pilot areas representative of Mediterranean forest characteristics, aimed at improving their resilience to drought.

Diving deeper into the Danube Carpathian region, we will also learn from the ForestConnect project and applied adaptation measures to climate-driven food scarcity for large carnivores.

Agenda 10:00 – 11:30 CET

1. Welcome and Checkin
2. Introduction to climate-resilient planning and methodologies – Moreno Di Marco, University of Sapienza
3. NaturaConnect methodology and application for protected areas – Marta Cimatti, University of Sapienza
4. Introduction to available tutorial – Valerio Mezzanotte, University of Sapienza
5. Assessing forest vulnerability to drought and supporting adaptation strategies – José Atauri, EUROPARC Spain
6. ForestConnect project: Pilot actions to adapt to climate-driven food scarcity for large carnivores – Maria Kachamakova, WWF Bulgaria
7. Summary and Closing