Leading conservation organisations have today announced the launch of a project that aims to generate collaborative solutions to restore ecosystems across Europe.

While the project is specific to Europe, its solutions could help address global barriers to restoration and support the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, the UN-led campaign and rallying call for the protection and restoration of ecosystems around the world.

Over the next three years, the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) in partnership with BirdLife International and the RSPB will bring together key stakeholders from relevant sectors, including international and local non-governmental organisations, restoration practitioners, policymakers, as well as representatives from the conservation, restoration and finance sectors. Through dialogue and consultations, the Convening for Restoration project will identify solutions to overcome barriers to large-scale ecosystem restoration.

Restoration can help address biodiversity loss, land degradation and climate change while supporting ecosystem services and improving overall human well-being. Restoration efforts form a major part of new global targets for nature. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and related package of decisions – agreed last year by 196 countries – calls for 30 per cent of the world’s degraded land, marine and inland water areas to be restored or under effective restoration management by 2030, as well as setting targets to ensure financing for restoration.

The Convening for Restoration project will build on research published in 2021 that identified three main barriers to restoration in Europe:

• Conflicting stakeholder interests;
• Insufficient funding;
• Low political priority given to restoration.

Between now and 2025, the project, which is being funded by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative’s Endangered Landscapes Programme, will convene and administer two expert taskforces to examine these three restoration challenges and establish sectoral good practice to inform and energise policy and action. Taskforces on tackling the three key barriers to restoration will be set up under the project and knowledge products targeted to specific audiences will be co-developed and disseminated.

Find more information, visit the project page here and contact [email protected] for further information.

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, led by the United Nations Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and its partners, covers terrestrial as well as coastal and marine ecosystems. As a global call to action, it will draw together political support, scientific research and financial muscle to massively scale up restoration. Find out how you can contribute to the UN Decade. Follow #GenerationRestoration.