Piero Visconti, Jutta Beher and Louise O’Connor from IIASA, Jeremy Dertien, Nestor Fernandez from iDiv, and Gabrielle Aubert from IEEP attended the third Biogeographical Seminar of the Mediterranean Biogeographical region at Larnaca in Cyprus for a 3-day long meeting including presentations, discussion rounds and visits to field sites. Representatives from environmental departments of national and regional agencies, project managers of applied conservation activities within the Natura2000 sites of the region and scientists met with delegates from the European Commission to exchange and discuss ongoing work regarding the Biodiversity Strategy 2030. Piero Visconti presented the NaturaConnect project including preliminary results from WP7 and relevant aspects of incorporating climate change into conservation planning. Jeremy Dertien presented the approach and first results from European connectivity and ecological corridors. Jutta Beher presented concepts for strict protection and alternative scenarios for strict protected area expansion in Europe. Gabrielle Aubert presented financing opportunities and Louise O’Connor presented the NaturaConnector platform. The Mediterranean has an outstanding importance for Europe’s biodiversity, with many species and habitats found nowhere else in the world. This exceptional biodiversity is expected to be highly vulnerable as the climate changes. In NaturaConnect’s first results, many priority sites are located here that could provide some of the best additional biodiversity outcomes when included in the expansion of the protected area network to 30% across Europe. We hope our attendance at the seminar will lead to discussions on if and how some of the gaps could be closed by identifying the best sites for protection, strict protection, or restoration.