Researchers provide recommendations for strengthening cross-border cooperation, participation and nature protection in transboundary regions.

The aim of the TRANSNATURE project is to determine key factors leading to the loss of biodiversity, and how existing stakeholders and institutional mechanisms can be improved through policy recommendations that focus on transboundary cooperation to protect environmental degradation. The shared attribute across the policy recommendations is the urgent need for a structured approach among stakeholders affected by biodiversity issues.

Several researchers from the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland have participated in the project; research professor Sanna Kopra, senior researcher Nuccio Mazzullo, junior researcher Katharina Heinrich and PhD candidate Paula Tulppo. The project takes a unique approach to revise and analyse what are the cooperation strategies that are in place to combat the loss of biodiversity based on four different case studies, situated in border regions in Spain/ Portugal, Italy/ Slovenia, the Netherlands/ Belgium and Norway/ Finland/ Sweden. Arctic Centre researchers were involved in the” Baltic to Barents” case study.

Mazzullo emphasizes the importance of employing these policy recommendations.

“There is a serious need to implement integrated frameworks that strive to institutionalize cooperation with local and Sámi indigenous communities and extend those successful examples beyond the project case studies, since biodiversity issues exist across Europe”, he remarks.

The project began in 2023 and gained ground in the following years. The research group collected research data related to western and northern border regions of Lapland and neighbouring areas in Sweden and Norway. Based on the interviews, a focus group meeting with key stakeholders and an additional stakeholder meeting held at the end of 2025, the policy recommendations were finalized in the spring of 2026.

The results of the project show the importance of wide transboundary cooperation in environmental issues, as nature does not follow borders.

“The importance of different actors working together cannot be emphasized enough, because of the cumulative effects that biodiversity has on local, regional, national and international policy making”, Paula Tulppo says.

The final version of the Policy Recommendations has been translated to Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian.

The research project was funded by Biodiversa+, the European Biodiversity Partnership, which is co-funded by and the European Commission and national funding agencies, such as the Research Council of Finland.

Policy recommendations are available here: TRANSNATURE Policy Recommendations