_{© Jorge Araújo}
 

From 18 to 22 May 2025, Portugal hosted the 7th Meeting of the TRANS-lighthouses | More than green - Lighthouses of transformative nature-based solutions for inclusive communities. Hosted by the Municipalities of Barcelos and Estarreja, this event brought together around 40 people from 17 partner organisations across Europe, who focused on the fundamental aspects of the project’s work: the sociopolitical dimensions of Nature-based Solutions (NbS), the approach that incorporates citizen science, and ways to ensure inclusive participation for all.

One of the most significant moments of the event was the testimonies of young people from Barcelos and Estarreja who participated in the pilot projects. The pilot project in Barcelos focuses on the renaturalisation of recreational spaces in three schools, incorporating ecological and pedagogical concerns through Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) that strengthen opportunities for students to connect with nature. The Estarreja project, meanwhile, emphasises NBS that combine traditional knowledge and modern environmental practices to boost local biodiversity, community wellbeing, and the conservation and enhancement of the municipality’s natural heritage. The pilot project also involves young people whose testimonies and interactions with project partners revealed how deeply engaged they became and the critical awareness they developed regarding the climate emergency.

Their stories showed how this work is having a genuine impact on their lives and on the educational communities they belong to, highlighting why it is so important to involve people of all ages in collective future-building initiatives.

According to Isabel Ferreira, Principal Investigator of TRANS-lighthouses, “with dedicated people working at the intersection of Nature-Based Solutions, public policy, and community engagement, the consortium is helping to strengthen more informed, inclusive, and sustainable decision-making processes, with the potential to serve as an international reference.”

The gathering enabled interaction between people working directly with communities on the ground, public servants leading local programmes, elected representatives shaping future policies, NGO leaders advocating for change, and researchers bringing knowledge and evidence from their studies. This diversity of people, coming from different countries and contexts but united in mutual support as agents of transformation, offers strong promise that the solutions developed will be effective in varied socio-political realities.

TRANS-lighthouses is a project funded by the European Union (2023–2026) through the Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (GA101084628), aiming to rethink the way Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) are designed and implemented, promoting social and ecological justice. It brings together a network of “lighthouses” – a metaphor for local collaborative governance arrangements – in urban, rural, coastal, and forested areas. Each lighthouse includes living labs, pilot cases, assessment studies, and international partnerships, with the goal of testing new governance models and co-creation tools. The project seeks to make NBS more socially, ecologically, and economically effective, contributing to meaningful change.