NATAE project in Tunisia: IUCN on mission at the Siliana Living Lab to assess agricultural land biodiversity

Five days of fieldwork, five plots visited, and conversations with the people who work the land every day. From April 5-9, 2026, an IUCN team traveled to the Siliana Governorate in northwestern Tunisia to work at the heart of the NATAE (North African Transition to Agroecology) Living Lab. The mission was organized to support local partners and address the territory's needs as identified during the project's diagnostic phase. The goal was to closely observe local agricultural conditions and begin pinpointing the most relevant functional biodiversity indicators for assessing land health in this cereal and olive-growing region. 
 

The mission brought together technicians from Tunisian Institut National des Grandes Cultures (INGC), the country's leading institution for cereal research and technical support. The team also engaged with researchers from the National Institute of Agronomy in Tunisia (INAT), the higher education body overseeing agricultural training nationwide. These exchanges gave the IUCN team a comprehensive picture of ongoing agricultural and agroecological initiatives at both regional and national levels, while also clarifying the institutional landscape in which the NATAE Living Lab operates. 
 

NATAE is a Horizon Europe-funded project bringing together 23 research, education, and civil society partners with a shared mission: advancing the agroecological transition across North Africa. The project draws on seven Living Labs - collaborative spaces for knowledge exchange and co-creation - established across five countries (Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania, and Tunisia), each representing a distinct agricultural system of the region, from Saharan oases to Mediterranean cereal plains. 
 

The Siliana Living Lab, situated in the El Krib delegation, is set within a landscape of large-scale field crops dominated by durum wheat and barley, with the mixed cereal-livestock system typical of northwestern Tunisia. Here, agroecological practices - direct seeding, crop rotation with legumes, forage associations, and intercropping - are being implemented, tested, and evaluated by local stakeholders. 
 

A framework for measuring what we don't always see 

As a NATAE project partner, IUCN Med brings a specific contribution: the Land Health Monitoring Framework (LHMF), a methodological framework for tracking functional biodiversity across agricultural landscapes. Published by the IUCN, this framework offers a flexible approach grounded in existing indicators to assess biological diversity at multiple scales, from soil and field level to landscape and national levels. 

The principle is straightforward, yet rich in application: rather than compiling an exhaustive species inventory, the LHMF focuses on functional biodiversity - the living diversity that delivers real benefits to agricultural ecosystems. Vegetation that retains soil moisture, pollinators that fertilize crops, soil organisms that sustain fertility, hedgerows and natural corridors that structure the landscape and prevent erosion. 

Conversations with Tunisian farmers 

The fieldwork gave the IUCN team the chance to visit five representative sites across the Living Lab. At each stop, the mission was the same: identify the challenges farmers face, observe practices on the ground, understand landscape structure, and spot the biodiversity likely to be present and contributing ecosystem services to address the problems identified. This diagnostic work is an essential first step before selecting which indicators will be monitored over time. 

Discussions with the NATAE project's local focal point helped situate the agricultural context at both national and local scales - crucial input for ensuring the LHMF's relevance and fit with Siliana's specific circumstances. 

The farmers themselves were at the heart of this mission. Their observations on crop choice, the agroecological practices they employ, and the changes they see in local biodiversity as a result provided invaluable data for calibrating the LHMF. Farmers' knowledge of their own land complements the science. 

Looking beyond Tunisia, insights from this first field visit will be woven back into the LHMF, refining its application across the other NATAE Living Labs and in other contexts. Field visits are scheduled for the coming months in Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania. 

This IUCN mission was organized to support project partners and respond to the territory's needs, as expressed during the diagnostic phases in Tunisia.