PRESS RELEASE | BRUSSELS | 10 JANUARY 2018
Consortium and Advisory Board members have gathered in Brussels to discuss final steps for the EU-funded MINATURA2020 project that will come to an end in January 2018
The EU-funded MINATURA2020 project has been launchedall in 2015, with the aim of developing a concept and a methodology for safeguarding European non-energy “Mineral Deposits of Public Importance” (abbreviated as MDoPI) to ensure their best use in the future. The project is now about to come to an end and the consortium and the Advisory Board therefore met in Brussels, on 10 January 2018, to discuss final steps that will allow to conclude the project successfully.
Gathering a consortium of 24 partners from 19 European countries, MINATURA2020 is focusing on the key issue of competing land-uses. It seeks to contribute to the improvement of planning processes with a view to integrating spatial and mineral planning so as to avoid the sterilisation of nationally, internationally and locally important minerals by other development, thereby safeguarding present and future access to mineral resources or expediting its extraction to allow other land-uses to follow. MINATURA2020 aims thus to contribute to providing Europe’s society with a policy framework supporting the sustainable supply of mineral raw materials that are extracted within the EU.
Since the project beginning, 32 workshops have been organised at national level, involving more than 500 stakeholders. During these workshops, the project partners presented the MDoPI concept developed by the consortium to a broad range of stakeholders and obtained feedback on the methodology that will allow to identify Mineral Deposits of Public Importance. Taking stock of these inputs collected at national level, the consortium will shortly publish its joint visions for the future of MDoPI safeguarding in Europe.
In the meantime, all interested stakeholders are invited to subscribe to the project’s Council of Stakeholders and view this short promotional video to learn more about the project’s objectives:
Please download the press release here.