WWF Hungary was founded in 1991 in order to meet the most urgent challenges and threats on nature in Hungary on a national level while aligning its work to international nature conservation efforts. WWF Hungary’s nature conservation priorities in order to contribute to WWF-CEE’s mission are the protection of rivers, wetlands and natural forests, ensuring sustainable and environmentally friendly agriculture and rural development, reduction of climate change impacts, improving human coexistence with large carnivores, raising environmental awareness in the public and preservation of the protected and endangered habitats and species.
To achieve these goals, the joint work with local municipalities and involving other organizations are essential. One of the important goals of WWF Hungary is to support CEE municipalities in adapting to climate change and implementing climate-friendly operations.
In the running CEESEU project, WWF Hungary presents the entire process from the preparation of the climate strategy to the acquisition of the necessary resources for its implementation and the evaluation of the achieved results through the example of two rural towns, Hatvan and Sátoraljaújhely. In the process, WWF HU provides assistance to the settlements in the effective involvement of the inhabitants and all other stakeholders in community planning. WWF HU organizes trainings and conferences for local decision makers and civilians, where they can get good ideas, find out about the possibilities and build useful relationships with each other and with actors in the governmental and corporate sectors.
The main goal of the CEESEU-DIGIT project is the preparation of a new type of regional energy and climate plans (ECAP). In addition to the mitigation measures, the documents prepared based on the new methodology, with the active cooperation of WWF Hungary, also try to place great emphasis on adaptation and landscape-level planning compared to the existing energy and climate plans. In addition to the climate protection goals, the project also pays special attention to vulnerable social groups and those affected by energy poverty.
WWF Hungary is highly committed to taking part in the CEESEN initiative as a country coordinator, and seeks to build bridges between relevant stakeholders (decision makers, experts, local inhabitants, etc.) in the topics of climate protection and CO2 mitigation in the CEE region. They believe that together we can make tangible effects in GHG mitigation, climate adaptation, and alleviation of energy poverty as well. The key to success is adequate communication. Therefore WWF Hungary put extra emphasis on fulfilling and leading the communication related tasks in the CEESEU and in the CEESEU-DIGIT projects.