News

The PURPLE network has submitted a response to the European Commission's online consultation on the current (7th) Environmental Action Programme.

Alongside its responses to an online consultation questionnaire, PURPLE also submitted a stand-alone statement calling for a clearer place-based focus in any future version of the EAP post 2020. Whilst strongly supportive of an overall framewprk for environmental concerns across all policy areas, PURPLE called for greater coherence across policy "silos" and greater policy coherence with environmental matters much nore clearly posited as a cross-cutting theme explicitly written into all sectoral policies.

At the same time, PURPLE wants to see a much clearer and more overt territorial dimension to environmental actions and policy with the particular opportunities arising in different types of territories - for example peri-urban- highlighted in national implementation plans etc.

 

The 28th PURPLE General Assembly included a seminar held in Brno on June 27 2018 with the title “Combating Peri-urban Climate Change (mitigating the effects of climate change in peri-urban areas)”.

The event's Czech hosts offered a series of four complementary presentations designed to give both an overview and accompanying detail of the local situation and the sorts of actual and planned interventions which the region and others have developed and are in the process of implementing.

T. Kubíček, of the Regional Development Department (Strategic Development) of the South Moravian region started proceedings by outlining the sort of environmental activities the South Moravian region already undertake and how this is in part shaped by the known impacts of climate change.

Petr Hlavinka of the Mendel University in Brno addressed the audience on the topic of climate change and drought impacts and adaptation, and shared details of available tools for decision-making in the region with regard, for example, to predicting the incidence of drought in the future and how this might affect approaches to crop production.

The sorts of opportunities that might arise from the need to adapt to a changing climate was highlighted in a presentation on Agroforestry – an area of work which Mgr. Lukáš Kala, Ph.D, of the Institute of Botany of the CAS, v.v.i. argued could have benefits in terms both of regional development and rural landscape sustainability, 

The last presentation from the host region was delivered by Ing. Miroslav Foltýn, Head of the Water Management Planning Department, PovodíMoravy, s.p./Morava river basin, state enterprise who gave details of the local situation as regards water management and the role that that might play in mitigating the effects of climate change.

In response to the presentations from the local actors, PURPLE member regions responded with a further set of four presentations

PURPLE Secretary General, Vincent O’Connell, gave an overview of past PURPLE work and statements with regard to climate change and outlined a number of current debates and future funding opportunities which PURPLE may wish to pursue n the short- and mid-tern future.

This intervention was followed by a presentation by Paul van Der Sluys of the Flemish Land Agency (VLM) who shared details of the Water-Land-Scape project currently underway across Flanders highlighting a number of water related local initiatives funded under a special support programme.

Justyna Herian of the Wielkopolska Spatial Planning Office, took as her theme “Climate change in the Wielkopolska region”, providing an analysis of the sort of extreme weather impacts of climate change experienced or anticipated there. She also provided thoughts as regards the importance of public education programmes as a trigger for behaviour change.

Finally, Maciej Sulmicki, of the Mazovian Office of Regional Planning provided the audince with an oversight of extreme weather-related event mitigation measures in Mazovia, detailog the sort of emergency planning meassures that are currently in place and how these contnue to be adapted in face of shifting data and challenges.

 

The presentations from the event are now all available on the events page of the members section of the website.

PURPLE participated in the European Parliament AGRI Committee meeting on June 20 2018. As part of the meeting, Dr Annette Piorr and Dr Ingo Zasada, from the Leibnitz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) presented results of a study entitled  'Urban and peri-urban agriculture in the EU', See also: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/agri/home.html

Both the report and the presentation given on the day reference PURPLE and its role as a champion of peri-urban interests since 2004. The report can be downloaded here – specific references to PURPLE can be found at pp75-6 and references the PURPLE “founding paper”, its Topic Paper on food security and the Peri-urban Charter.

The research report, published on the day, set out to provide information and make an argument for greater recognition of the role that can be played by peri-urban, as well as urban, agriculture. The report goes on to set out some recommendations as to how these particular types of agricultural activity should be taken into account in the emerging policy agenda across different sectors, domains and governance levels.

The Leibnitz Centre has invited PURPLE to respond more specifically on peri-urban dimensions of the report as part of a broader process of exploring how they might collaborate in the future.

A transnational audience of 150-plus gathered in Potsdam on May 3 for an event focussing upon collaboration between urban centres and surrounding areas. (a number of presentations from the day can be found at:http://www.mil.brandenburg.de/sixcms/detail.php/851025 ).  The previous day’s announcement from the European Commission as regards the EU  Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-27 served as a pertinent backdrop to much of what was debated.

Brandenburg Minister for Infrastructure and Spatial Planning - and PURPLE General Assembly member - Ms. Kathrin Schneider, delivered a keynote address with considerable resonance for  peri-urban interests.

Taking as her theme the absolute need for collaboration if progress in local and regional development is to be achieved, Ms Schneider stressed the importance of genuine collaboration at multiple levels and across sectors, emphasising that a sense of place and shared interest should underpin all other considerations.

Real life situations and challenges are complex, the audience was reminded,  and our approach in addressing issues relevant to development in and around cities needs to reflect that. It should be embedded in our approach as well as our actions and we should be cautious about thinking in terms such as  “urban development” when in reality we know that urban and non-urban is inter-related and any “urban only” approach is flawed from the outset.

That element of Ms Schneider’s speech was echoed and amplified in other contributions and panel discussions later in the day, and was returned to by Ms Schneider herself with various speakers focussing on urban-rural joint working and governance both within and beyond EU funding programmes.  The Urban-Rural Competition (calls for proposals) in Brandenburg with which PURPLE Working Group members will already be familiar was cited as an obvious example of this approach in practice.

PURPLE has added a further Topic Paper to its suite of documents looking at the relevance of particular issues for peri-urban areas. It can be viewed here.

Public governance happens everywhere of course but the newly released Topic Paper looks to identify what is particular about peri-urban public governance. It analyses what is especially characteristic of public governance in places where rural and urban interests have to be balanced and where complexity is often even more pronounced than elsewhere.

Given what we already know on the subject, it sets a series of challenges to policy-makers and suggests next steps. These include the development of a series of illustrative examples from peri-urban locations within and beyond PURPLE member regions. 

PURPLE is delighted to announce that its first General Assembly of 2018 will take place in Brno on June 27 and 28.

An initial invitation has been extended to all member regions. A full programme and practical details will be made known in due course.

Non-members who may be interested in attending as guests are asked to contact secretarygeneral@purple-eu.org for details of how to register.