Authors: Fernández, Néstor; Pereira, Henrique M.;Langer, Christian;Quoss, Luise;Fernández, Miguel;

The ambition of NaturaConnect is to co-create with key decision-makers and stakeholders, knowledge, tools and capacity building to support Member States in realizing an ecologically representative, resilient and well-connected network of conserved areas that contribute to achieving the objectives of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. To do this, NaturaConnect has a comprehensive set of interdisciplinary research tasks aimed at producing, sharing and mobilizing knowledge for implementation. This includes applying state-of-the-art models on the distribution of biodiversity and ecosystem services across Europe and scenario projections on how distributions may change under future climate and land-use scenarios. Essential Biodiversity Variables are the cornerstone for assessing gaps in the current protected area coverage and to identify critical ecological corridors required to restore connectivity.