From Nature Restoration to National Restoration Plans

Shan Gao on November 14, 2025

On 4 November, SUPERB collaborated with the European Forest Institute’s ThinkForest webinar for an in-depth look at nature restoration with a focus on forests, asking what support the latest science can offer.

Elisabeth Schatzdorfer, Principal Scientist at EFI presented some of the lessons learned from SUPERB, building on its multidisciplinary scientific and practical findings, including those from 12 large-scale demonstration sites across Europe. 

There are many objectives for forest restoration – including restoring or improving biodiversity, resilience, forest products and services. Research shows a majority of the European public supports forest restoration; however, it is important to note that restoration can’t fulfil every objective at the same time. There are always trade-offs and space must be left for compromises.

Guided by the idea of transformative change rather than disruption and immediate change, SUPERB used a toolbox of restoration measures in its diverse demo areas in cooperation with stakeholders to test and showcase how restoration can be done to the benefit of nature and people. To be effective and sustainable, measures need to be adapted to the local context and synergies and trade-offs need to also be considered. Elisabeth emphasised that there is no silver bullet for optimising restoration – we need to be careful with the idea that if we restore biodiversity all other problems are automatically solved too. In addition, there is not a universally agreed endpoint for restoration – we need to take a holistic, forward-looking and adaptive approach, fully involving stakeholders.

A thoughtful panel discussion highlighted some of the challenges and opportunities for integrating the latest science into the design of National Restoration Plans (NRPs). These must be submitted by each EU Member State by 1 September 2026, under the EU Nature Restoration Regulation. 

Łukasz Rejt from the Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment emphasised the importance of transmitting scientific knowledge from projects to policymakers and government experts. The project findings and proposed measures should be understandable for policymakers and accessible in local languages, to enable the knowledge to make its way into the NRP.  

Jenni Roche from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Ireland, pointed out that this communication should be two-way. Individual Member States have their own very specific needs and diverse contexts – so it is important for researchers and projects to be clear about the applicability of their findings. 

Florian Claeys from DG Environment also highlighted that there is not a single blueprint for restoration – it is dynamic, evolving continuously through experience. The latest science should be at the core of this evolution. Research would also be extremely important on monitoring methods. 

The panel also focused on engagement, and the participation of local communities in the process, which was seen as one of the keys to success. 

Katarina Tumpa from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Croatia highlighted the need for education – to encourage people from all areas of the country (not just big cities) to participate, and to help them develop an understanding of the trade-offs. Education can help to show that different local communities can see the forest from very different points of view, and encourage people to accept different perspectives. The panel also highlighted the importance of engaging widely, for example via online questionnaires, conferences and public hearings. 

Summing up, the panel recommended:

  • Knowledge and dialogue, to bring the best solutions 
  • Thinking big – aiming for large scale and looking for multiple benefits across measures and policies
  • When working on national restoration plans also thinking regionally – your forest is your neighbour’s forest
  • Not being afraid of the Nature Restoration Regulation – it provides a chance to reinvent our relationship with nature

This news item was originally published here.

How Europe’s restoration projects are shaping national plans

Daria Kononenko on May 8, 2025

Across Europe, there are 71 restoration sites — from Ireland’s peatlands to Romania’s forests. Since 2021, SUPERB and its sister projects MERLIN, REST-COAST and WaterLANDS have been working on the ground to restore forests, wetlands, rivers, and coasts, all funded under the Green Deal. 

Now the projects’ findings are helping countries draft National Restoration Plans (NRPs) — a key requirement under the EU’s new Nature Restoration Regulation. 

To support this process, over 100 experts — scientists, policymakers, and local stakeholders — met at the European Commission on 10 March 2025. The meeting focused on what has worked in practice, where challenges remain, and how field-based experience can help Member States design effective NRPs. 

The report Supporting the Development of National Restoration Plans brings together what’s been learned so far — practical tools, examples, and ideas that can help shape national restoration plans, including from SUPERB’s side: 

  • A soon-to-launch Forest Knowledge Gateway with guides on tree selection, funding, and more. 
  • Case studies from SUPERB’s 12 demonstration sites. 
  • Policy maps showing where national laws align or clash with restoration goals. 

With draft NRPs due by September 2026, SUPERB’s work aims at helping national partners to implement these tools — from policy alignment frameworks to site-specific restoration strategies tested across its demonstration area network. 

Read on the full report here

Photo: Anat art / Adobe Stock

Supporting National Restoration Plan Development

Rina Tsubaki on March 24, 2025

SUPERB Coordinator Elisabeth Schatzdorfer presenting

Restoration Story by Rina Tsubaki and Yulia Poskakukhina

Biodiversity in Europe is at a critical risk: intensive or industrial farming and forestry practices, urbanisation, land abandonment, climate change and invasive species have reduced the resilience of our ecosystems and are threatening native species. The issue of inadequate land use severely impacts biodiversity and jeopardizes our supply of food, clean water and other bio-based resources. To prevent an irreversible situation, the EU has taken a step forward by introducing the EU Nature Restoration Regulation. Entering into force in August 2024, the EU Nature Restoration Regulation aims to achieve an ambitious goal to put all ecosystems in need of restoration on the path to recovery by 2050. Unlike previous policies, it looks beyond 2030 and incorporates 25 years targets for long-lasting system change. Member States are currently intensively preparing for the national adaptation through the National Restoration Plans (NRPs) due in September 2026.  

What can SUPERB and other Green Deal ecosystem restoration projects offer to policymakers involved in developing the NRPs? What are some of the lessons we can draw from stakeholder engagement carried out under these projects?  

On 10 March 2025, a high-level policy event in Brussels, ‘Supporting National Restoration Plan Development,’ gathered around 80 national and Commission representatives involved in developing or guiding NRPs, as well as key stakeholders like landowners’ organisations. Organised by the EU’s Green Deal Ecosystem Restoration cluster projects, European Commission project officers, and Prospex Institute with support from the Green Deal Support Office and REA, this event featured SUPERB, MERLIN, REST-COAST, and WaterLANDS to support EU Member States and offer a platform to engage directly with the scientific communities behind these projects. 

During the morning panel with cluster projects coordinators moderated by Marc Gramberger of Prospex Institute, Elisabeth Schatzdorfer, our SUPERB coordinator, shared lessons from the project that are relevant for the national representatives working on NRPs. She emphasised the importance of addressing broader societal needs for diverse ecosystem services by rigorously going to the local level. The lessons from SUPERB also highlighted the need for not just scientific knowledge but also practical, on the ground experience to advance our strategies for the implementation of restoration.  To support this, SUPERB is rolling out a key restoration actor-targeted Forest Knowledge Gateway and Restoration Marketplace to share scientific and practical knowledge collected through the project and offer matchmaking possibilities to connect those working on restoration with investors. As a take-home message for national representatives, Elisabeth emphasised in particular three points:  

  • The need for the application of adaptive, forward-looking restoration in their NRPs to respond to climate change and diverse societal needs. A very important measure is assisted tree migration. Since the NRR is very narrow on the definition of native tree species, here the recommendation was to consider dropping the optional NRR indicator on ‘Share of forests dominated by native tree species’. 
  • The importance of clarity and transparency about the trade-offs to get broad societal support, because e.g. restored sites may have a reduced C sink capacity or may temporarily even become a source of carbon, or the restoration actions may benefit some parts of biodiversity, while others are not favoured;   
  • The need to address omnipresent browsing issues at the national and local levels, which is a major cause for forest degradation and hindrance for forest restoration and adaptation, also dramatically increasing the costs of forest restoration due to the required protective measures.  

In the afternoon, three breakout sessions were organised to discuss themes where SUPERB partners were represented: 

  • 1) Financing restoration, represented by Thomas Lundhede (University of Copenhagen),  
  • 2) Synergies, trade-offs, monitoring, and prioritisation, represented by Gert-Jan Nabuurs and Sara Filipek (Wageningen University) and Yulia Poskakukhina (Prospex Institute) 
  • 3) Stakeholder engagement and governance, represented by Miro Prek (Prospex Institute) and Rina Tsubaki (EFI) 

The breakout group on financing discussed a wide range of issues that need to be addressed for successful restoration financing. The Rest-Coast and Waterlands projects showed several business models for upscaling different types of projects and the pros and cons were discussed. With an emphasis that a “one-size-fits-all” approach does not work in this context, the session highlighted the importance of a strong value proposition that also demonstrates how the restoration brings about additionality and permanence to generate incentives for investment. It was mentioned how the availability of finance is not necessarily the problem but rather that the risk adjusted return on investments that investors expect is not sufficient. It was discussed in which ways government can assist in de-risking investments in nature restoration.   

The group focusing on synergies, trade-offs, monitoring and prioritisation covered a broad range of themes and tools from four Green Deal cluster projects. For example, SUPERB presented its restoration guidelines and its projection tools to support both experts and the public in understanding “what happens to forests in the future” and to access trade-offs. It emphasised that circumstances and pressures on forests are different across Europe and that forests fulfil many functions all of which will be influenced by restoration. All this needs to be reflected in the goals of the restoration, monitoring and assessment tools used.  During the discussion, it was noted that targeting low-hanging fruit is one strategy that allows public authorities to showcase achievable results quickly. For instance, this can be done by prioritising reactive ecosystems. It was also highlighted that demonstrating the pursuit of multiple goals (for instance, biodiversity restoration and protection from flooding) can make projects more acceptable. To create more incentives for investment, participants suggested that cost-benefit analysis should also be integrated into monitoring so that data can support the value proposition. Monitoring was emphasised as a tool for both guiding restoration actions and bringing stakeholders on board through evidence. Considering the difficulty of monitoring every single restoration action, participants promoted Randomised and sampling-based approaches for monitoring.  

Last but not least, the final group discussed governance challenges and barriers to restoration on one hand and the role of stakeholder engagement in addressing these challenges on the other. To gain public and community support for any policy implementation, it’s vital to address the interests of different stakeholders. To do so, public authorities need to identify them first. Yet, several barriers may arise, ranging from institutional bureaucracy and fragmentation to a lack of regulatory frameworks and policy integration. Despite these institutional challenges, the research from four cluster projects shows that stakeholder engagement, collaborative decision-making, and holistic thinking play a crucial role in enabling restoration. During the discussion with Member State representatives, SUPERB presented its innovative approach to identifying underexplored public narratives and actors through online/social media data research.  We also shared our ‘Forest Storytelling and Engagement for Change’ Toolkit with the participating stakeholders as a practical guide to support stakeholder identification and engagement processes for NRPs.  

Photos by Rina Tsubaki