How can ecosystems be effectively restored throughout Europe?

Maintaining functional, healthy ecosystems is imperative for the conservation of biodiversity and the essential ecosystem services that humans depend on. However, throughout Europe the status of many ecosystems have continued to degrade due to anthropogenic drivers and stressors. To tackle this, several policies in Europe have aimed at restoring ecosystems including the European Green Deal and the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2030.

In order to support the implementation of restoration measures, it is imperative to provide guidance to relevant stakeholders to ensure that measures effectively assist in maintaining and/or restoring ecosystems. To do so, identifying where and how to prioritise ecosystem restoration within the relevant policy agendas will be crucial in coming years. As such, this study will support the European Environment Agency in prioritising their research agenda in relation to ecosystem restoration in the coming years.

The project is conducted by Trinomics in collaboration with IEEP, and will run from July 2020 to September 2020.

This investigation provided the following preliminary results:

  • To garner a holistic overview of policy needs from key stakeholders involved in EU restoration efforts;
  • To define and agree upon a list of priorities for research in relation to ecosystem restoration, between the European Environment Agency, the European Commission and other stakeholders.