Tunisia

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Tunisia, the only North African country in the BIODEV2030 project, boasts a rich marine and terrestrial biodiversity. With its openness to the Sahara and its Mediterranean coastline, the country stands out for the diversity of its natural landscapes, ecosystems and habitats. No fewer than 3,100 taxa of vegetation have been recorded, including 200 endemic species shared with regional territories. Tunisia boasts 7 major ecosystems with a rich biological diversity of over 7,500 species, including 3,800 species of wild fauna and flora and 3,700 marine species.

Tunisia has set up 17 national parks, 27 nature reserves and 4 wildlife reserves to protect the country's biodiversity.

Tunisia's biological diversity is also characterized by its 42 wetlands of international importance, classified under the RAMSAR Convention. They represent 5.5% of the country's total surface area. These ecosystems provide numerous ecosystem services, particularly in water management:

• • Groundwater replenishment

• • Water purification and quality

• • Soil infiltration

• • Flood control

However, since the 19th century, Tunisia has been exposed to a strong anthropization of its environments: overexploitation of resources, weak regulation of illegal and harmful activities, lack of planning and coordination for biodiversity protection. This has led to considerable losses in biological richness (groundwater drying up, agricultural clearing, eutrophication, etc.).

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In Tunisia, multi-stakeholder dialogue has taken different forms in different sectors.

For the mineral water sector, representatives of public organizations and private companies met in four dialogue workshops.

Representatives of the extractive industry (companies and the National Chamber of Cement Producers) took part in two dialogue workshops.

For the banking sector, two roundtables were organized, bringing together banks and financial institutions, ministerial representatives and government agencies.

At the end of phase I, representatives of the three sectors signed voluntary commitments at a closing event .

Options chosen and scenarios discussed

Country profiles IPPS

After supporting the 15 countries in the identification of priority sectors, and facilitating the commitment of private-sector players in favor of biodiversity, BIODEV2030 will build on the momentum created to roll out the voluntary commitments on the scale of a pilot territory, and to strengthen the integration of biodiversity into countries' sectoral public policies.

The sectors targeted for Phase II are the agro-industrial sector and the banking sector. To identify the most relevant sectoral public policy instruments (SPPIs) to be created, abolished, or amended, BIODEV2030 engaged the consulting firm Altai Consulting. This support is thus intended to help ensure coherence among economic and sectoral policies (agriculture, mining, fisheries, forestry, etc.) and environmental policies (particularly those related to biodiversity), a key aspect of the mainstreaming approach. This comprehensive integration of biodiversity helps prevent economic and sectoral policies from encouraging stakeholders (producers) to adopt production practices harmful to nature, which would contradict a government’s biodiversity commitments.

Altai has developedIPPS sheets for each country. The Tunisia sheet is available via the button above.

The first national dialogue workshop for Phase II was held on May 23, 2024. It brought together the Conseil Bancaire et Financier and WWF-North Africa and led to the signing of a three-year frameworkagreement between the two entities. This collaboration aims to integrate sustainable financial practices and reduce the ecological footprint of financial activities.

Through this partnership, the CBF aims to promote the integration of biodiversity and environmental criteria into the investment decisions, risk assessment and environmental responsibility of CBF member banks and financial institutions. The signing of this agreement demonstrates our determination to strengthen our actions in favor of biodiversity. The Ministries of the Environment and Agriculture were included in this workshop.

With regard to theagro-industrial sector, thenational workshops endorsed the prioritization of two IPPS—the review of chemical input use and the promotion of organic inputs—as well as the development of a national funding framework that supports biodiversity. This framework would provide a tax incentive to promote economic activities that have a positive impact on biodiversity.

Concept Notes

With the aim of helping stakeholders in pilot areas (private, public, CSOs) to collectively define actions to reduce pressures on biodiversity, transition projects towards nature-positive practices, or even nature-based solutions, will be developed on the basis of the change actions identified during the multi-stakeholder dialogue, and then brought to the attention of potential funders.

The Medjerda Valley has been selected as the site for the development of a pilot territorial project. The project aims to contribute to the ecological and socioeconomic sustainability of the Medjerda Valley through integrated water management, the adoption of certified agroecological practices, and the promotion of local initiatives, with the following objectives:

1. Support integrated and participatory natural resource management in the face of climate change.
2. To strengthen the resilience and sustainability of agricultural activities in the middle Medjerda Valley through the dissemination and adoption of agroecological practices, particularly biocontrol.