MedFireWise: Building a Fire-Resilient Mediterranean Starts in Athens

Athens, 4 November 2025 — The MedFireWise Project officially launched in Athens, positioning the city as a hub for Mediterranean cooperation on wildfire risk reduction. Coordinated by the National Observatory of Athens (NOA), the initiative brings together partners from Greece, Spain, Italy, Türkiye, Tunisia, Algeria, and Lebanon to scale up Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) for wildfire prevention and landscape resilience.

Publication Date
06/11/2025
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< 1 minute

A launch focused on action

At the kick-off meeting, partners aligned on a common roadmap to deploy and adapt proven practices across diverse Mediterranean landscapes. Core approaches include prescribed burning, integrated forest management through extensive grazing, and silvopasture — techniques designed to reduce fuel loads, restore ecosystem balance, and support rural livelihoods.

Why it matters

Wildfires across the Mediterranean are intensifying due to hotter, drier conditions, abundant vegetation, strong winds, and human-driven pressures such as land-use change and unsustainable agricultural practices. MedFireWise prioritizes solutions that work with nature — strengthening ecosystems’ ability to resist, adapt to, and recover from wildfire events.

What the project will deliver (2025–2028)

  • Operational tools & frameworks to improve preparedness, early action, and response.
  • On-the-ground demonstrations of Nature-based-Solutions (NbS) tailored to local contexts, with systematic replication across regions.
  • Awareness and capacity-building for authorities, first responders, land managers, and communities — ensuring practices are practical, scalable, and lasting.

Cross-Mediterranean cooperation

By sharing data, methods, and lessons learned, MedFireWise will accelerate knowledge transfer so that what works in one landscape can be adapted efficiently elsewhere. The result: a stronger, shared capacity for wildfire risk management across the Mediterranean basin.

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