The Mediterranean is rich in landscapes, cultures, and agrobiodiversity, yet it is increasingly threatened by mass tourism, intensive agriculture, and rural depopulation. These pressures degrade ecosystems, erode cultural identity, and disconnect tourism from local communities and food traditions.
INSPIRE responds to these challenges by developing and testing a community-based model for the co-creation and co-management of sustainable tourism destinations rooted in local agrobiodiversity. Through Living Labs, digital tools like crowdmapping, and transnational cooperation, the project empowers local stakeholders to reconnect tourism with their territory, values, and knowledge.
By protecting biodiversity, enhancing rural economies, and giving voice to communities, INSPIRE aims to make the Mediterranean a place where tourism supports, rather than threatens, nature, culture, and people
Key Features
- Duration: 33 months, from April 2025 to January 2027.
- Budget: Over 1,7 million euros
- Pilot Areas: Five pilot regions— Albany, France (Corsica), Greece, Italy, Spain. These areas will test sustainable tourism experiences focusing on community engagement, agroecological preservation, and environmental resilience.
- Tools & Outputs: Participative activities as Living Lab and practical tools such as a crowdmapping platform will help stakeholders implement sustainable practices across the Mediterranean and beyond.
Three-phase approach:
- Phase 1: Inception Phase – Agrobiodiversity Mapping & Strategy Fine-tuning
The goal is to establish a shared framework for identifying a sustainable tourism destination management model based on biodiversity conservation. The expected change is the creation of a common strategy, co-developed across borders, that aligns sustainable tourism goals with agrobiodiversity conservation practices in rural Euro-MED areas.
- Phase 2: Testing the Co-creation Process for Sustainable Tourism Grounded on MED Agrobiodiversity
The goal is to co-design and test strategies and solutions for biodiversity preservation and ecosystem rehabilitation in tourism destination management, using participatory approaches. The emergence of tested, place-based models for sustainable tourism that reflect local agrobiodiversity, promote social innovation, and reinforce community resilience and environmental stewardship will be the result of this phase.
- Phase 3: Transferring and Capitalising
The goal is to transfer and disseminate the co-created model for sustainable tourism based on agrobiodiversity to other Euro-MED regions and governance levels. In this phase the project aims that public and private stakeholders adopt agrobiodiversity-based tourism models, and policy frameworks at all governance levels begin to integrate biodiversity preservation as a pillar of tourism development.
