Fashion is one of the least sustainable industries worldwide. About 5 million tonnes of textiles are thrown away every year in the EU, polluting our planet.🍁🍂🌰 As the season changes, let's think twice before running to the shops. Can you repair, reuse, recycle – or restyle – old clothes? Or browse thrift shops for high-quality, pre-loved clothing?The European Commission is creating a greener, more competitive textiles sector with the 🇪🇺 Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles by:🟢 Tackling greenwashing,️🌏 Restricting the export of textile waste and promoting sustainable textiles globally,🗑️ Reversing overproduction and overconsumption, and discouraging the destruction of unsold or returned textiles,♻️ Setting design requirements for textiles to make them last longer, easier to repair and recycle, as well as requirements on minimum recycled content...… to name just a few!
The Great Green Wall initiative - EU Global Gateway FlagshipThe EU support to the Great Green Wall (GGW) was a pledge at the 2021 One Planet Summit to provide more than € 700 million per year on this initiative. It has now become an African Union – EU Global Gateway Investment Package Flagship. The GGW initiative seeks to re-green the region of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa from Senegal to Somalia through a mosaic of green and productive landscapes. Regreening AfricaThe second phase of the initiative 'Regreening Africa' for land restoration has been announced beginning of 2024 in 7 countries of the Great Green Wall. It follows 'Regreening Africa – Phase I' which restored large areas of land for the benefit of people, biodiversity, and climate. It engaged with more than 600.000 households and brought over 350.000 hectares under restoration. Landscapes For Our FutureAnother global initiative, 'Landscapes For Our Future (LFF)' promotes Integrated landscape management (ILM), as a strategic approach to the way land and natural resources are used. It balances values, benefits, risks and trade-offs when planning and managing resource extraction, land use activities, and environmental conservation and management.Preserving soil fertility through agroecologyFrom another perspective, going from agriculture development to environment protection, EU DeSIRA initiative relies on science and research to develop innovation with a large range of actors in agri-food systems in developing countries. This initiative largely relies on the development of agroecology and nature-based solutions implementing results supported by research. Agroecology pushes for soil conservation and rehabilitation to contribute to innovations back-to-back with the farmers involved. to address the challenge of soil degradation.
🕜 Would YOU like to journey back in time and revisit significant moments in 🇪🇺 history? This is your chance! Ever heard of the ornate clock room where on 9 May 1950 French foreign minister Robert Schuman read out the declaration proposing the setting up of today’s European Union? Or the historic Stoa of Attalos, where representatives of 🇨🇾 🇨🇿 🇪🇪 🇭🇺 🇱🇻 🇱🇹 🇲🇹 🇵🇱 🇸🇰 🇸🇮 signed the Treaty to become members of the EU — for the great EU enlargement of 2004? This year, as we celebrate 20 years of these countries joining the European Union, we look back at some of the places that marked our common history: 🕰 The Clock Room, France 🖼️ Hall of the Horatii and Curiatii, Italy ♞ The Hall of Knights in the Hague, Netherlands ⛵️ The Princesse Marie-Astrid Boat, Luxembourg 🏛️ The banquet hall of the Limburg provincial government building in Maastricht, The Netherlands 🏺 The Stoa of Attalos, Greece ⛪ The Jerónimos Monastery, Portugal What makes these places special?
The Great Forests of Mesoamerica (Central America) concentrate between 7% and 10% of all known life forms and extend across 266 000 km2—twice the size of Greece. It is the geographical area in which the EU has deployed the Great Mesoamerican Forests Program, a flagship of the Global Gateway strategy in the region that has begun its implementation in 2024, with an EU contribution of EUR 25.5 million, under a Team Europe approach.The program is the EU's most ambitious regional commitment in this matter. Last February the Team Europe implementing agencies met in Costa Rica to begin its implementation during a two-day kick-off workshop.In March 2024, Pierre-Louis Lempereur and Francois Roudié, respectively EU Ambassadors in Costa Rica and El Salvador/Central American Integration System walked in a tour through La Amistad (Costa Rica) and its surrounding. It is one of the Great Forests of Mesoamerica, at about 2,600 meters above sea. Together with officials from the National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC), community leaders and local partners, the Ambassadors learned about good practices by communities in the sustainable use of forest resources that the EU is interested in replicating and scaling up.To take stock of the importance of protecting this unique natural environment, the Ambassadors traveled through part of the 80 hectares of protected primary forest. In this area, a group of families decided to invest in a forest management approach far to the traditional model of indiscriminate logging. With this project, the EU and the MSs aims —among other things— to demonstrate that experiences such as that of don William Solano's farm can serve as a model to successfully merge forest conservation and sustainable economic development in Mesoamerica.
