A matter of survival

It is degraded. Overexploited. And the web is fraying. European nature is in a poor state. Biological diversity has declined, ecosystems have been destroyed, a third of the continent faces water stress. Not least: no other continent is warming faster – climate warming is advancing in Europe at a rate twice the global average. Numerous extreme weather events such as drought and flooding are the result, with devastating impacts on the natural environment. The European Union’s Nature Restoration Regulation is designed to remedy the situation. It obliges the EU member states to draw up national restoration plans. In Germany, the Oeko-Institut is contributing its expertise to the process, working on ways to conserve key ecosystems and restore their functions.

The state is poor and the outlook not much better. This is the picture painted in the recent State of the Environment Report by the European Environment Agency (EEA). Water scarcity, soil degradation and the poor or even very poor state of 81 per cent of protected habitats give particular cause for concern. Moreover, the EEA notes that the outlook for most environmental trends is concerning and poses major risks to Europe’s prosperity, security and quality of life.

“The environment is not just something we enjoy on a weekend trip. We need it for our very survival,” says Judith Reise, Senior Researcher at the Oeko-Institut. “The value of ecosystem services can’t be overstated. We need them to produce food, to provide water, to harvest resources such as timber and for our recreation. At another level, they regulate the climate by sequestering carbon, keep the air clean by filtering pollutants, cool landscapes and purify our water. And let’s not forget the services provided by individual groups of species: insects, for example, which pollinate our plants.” The EEA highlights that attainment of the goal of climate neutrality by 2050 will also depend on how we handle natural resources such as land and water in future.

The EU Nature Restoration Regulation

The EEA further underscores how essential it will be to pursue nature-based solutions to restore habitats. “That strengthens resilience, fosters biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation and helps adapt to climate change,” notes Reise. The European Union’s Regulation on Nature Restoration adopted in June 2024 by the European Council is designed to promote such solutions. This is the first piece of legislation to establish restoration targets for degraded ecosystems in the EU in a legally binding form. By 2030 restoration measures are to have been carried out in at least 20 per cent of the terrestrial and sea areas in need of restoration. By 2050, this is to have been done in all ecosystems – by then, 100 per cent of terrestrial ecosystems of high conservation value and 90 per cent of those in marine environments are to have good ecological status. “It is very encouraging to see that Europe’s states are now addressing the issue, have to take stock of the areas they can and must restore, and have a timeline to do so.” The objectives could have been more ambitious, no doubt. “In view of the poor state, efforts will need to be stepped up considerably. Not least because biodiversity and climate issues interlock here.”

The EU member states are now obliged to prepare national restoration plans setting out detailed measures by which these targets can be met. Synergies are to be ensured with existing national and international schemes – such as the EU-wide Natura 2000 protected area network and Germany’s Federal Action Plan on Nature-based Solutions for Climate and Biodiversity. The Oeko-Institut is assisting the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) in producing Germany’s national restoration plan. This project involves cooperation with numerous partners: the Ecologic Institute, Luftbild Umwelt Planung GmbH, the University of Duisburg-Essen, the University of Rostock, the IVL Institute for Phytosociology and Landscape Ecology, the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development and Stefan Brunzel GbR. “One of our outputs will be a guidance paper for the competent authorities setting out how to identify sites potentially suitable for restoration measures. We are compiling publicly available data sources suited to the task and providing examples of how to process these.” Moreover, the project team is advising BfN on potential and essential restoration measures. “Beside converting site-inappropriate monocultures to mixed forests, such measures can involve restoring rivers to a more natural state, promoting more extensive grassland management or rewetting peatland.”

Controversy and conflict

Even prior to preparation of the national restoration plan there was no lack of controversy over the European Regulation. “There was a veritable campaign against the Nature Restoration Regulation by NGOs representing farmers and forest owners. They raised many fears, such as of expropriation or a general loss of economic freedoms. Yet implementation of the Regulation in fact rests above all on voluntary actions. This is quite clear, for instance, in the passages of the Regulation concerning the rewetting of peatland under agricultural use. The process is mainly about incentivising restoration measures, for example through the grant funding available under Germany’s Federal Action Plan on Nature-based Solutions for Climate and Biodiversity.

In principle, however, Judith Reise can well understand the frustration of many farmers and forest owners that has resulted from the implementation process of the Natura 2000 scheme. “Natura 2000 is a very rigid system unable to give full consideration to ongoing changes of habitat types. Its provisions need amendment.” She also understands the fears of some of Germany’s regional states (Länder). “In a highly bureaucratic setting with shrinking public budgets any additional task is of course a burden. And it is equally clear that it will not be an easy process – I do think, however, that one should wait and see how implementation actually evolves on the ground before embarking on confrontation.” Judith Reise is keen to stress that farmers can indeed profit from the measures. “We’re talking here about measures to control erosion or adapt to climate change, about new ways to make an income such as paludiculture and about making farm management fit for the future.”

The Oeko-Institut’s researcher is confident that the process of implementing the EU Nature Restoration Regulation in Germany will principally involve voluntary actions and grant incentives. “Unfortunately, the Regulation does not establish a financing strategy, there is no EU budget for it. In this context it is deplorable that the EU LIFE Programme, which promotes biodiversity and climate action among other things, will probably not be continued in its current form after 2027.”

On a final note, the Restoration Regulation would have had a different name if it were up to Judith Reise. “It’s a pity it wasn’t called Regulation to Safeguard our Livelihood Base. For that is precisely what it is about if we want to continue to have the ecosystems in the future upon whose services we vitally depend.”

---

Judith Reise holds a bachelor’s degree in Biodiversity and Ecology and a master’s in Global Change Ecology. She joined the Oeko-Institut’s Energy & Climate Division in 2019, where she works on synergies between biodiversity conservation and climate action, the conservation and restoration of carbon-rich ecosystems and sustainable forest management.