Environmental degradation impacts the well-being of an estimated 3.2 billion people globally while the loss of ecosystem services leads to a reduction of more than 10% of the world’s economic output (UNEP, 2021). At the same time, an estimated 32 million hectares of primary and recovering forest were lost globally between 2010 and 2015, and around 87% of the world’s wetlands have been lost since 1700. One out of four mammal species and an estimated 41% of the amphibians are threatened with extinction and, whilst only a small proportion of the insect species have been evaluated, declines of pollinator species have been recorded.

There has never been a more urgent need to revive damaged ecosystems than now. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is rallying a call for the protection and revival of ecosystems to put the world on track for a sustainable future. At a regional scale, the European Union is in the process of putting forward legally binding targets for nature restoration targets for all member states to increase biodiversity, mitigate and adapt to climate change, and prevent and reduce the impacts of natural disasters. Over 150 environmental NGOs have recently sent a letter to the European Commission calling for an ambitious 2030 target of restoring at least 15% of the EU’s land area, river length and sea area, to which all underlying ecosystem specific targets should contribute.

This is an opportunity to become part of the #GenerationRestoration movement but key gaps and challenges remain. This seed session is the closing event of the NetworkNature Semester on Nature-based Solutions for Ecosystem Restoration, which focuses on sharing experiences and good practices from nature-based solutions projects and ecosystem-restoration work from around the world and developing collaborations for ecosystem restoration as a nature-based solution.

Invited speakers from the EU-funded Nature-based Solutions project as well as the Green Deal projects will provide an overview of their work on ecosystem restoration while we will present an analysis of ongoing work on ecosystem restoration based on case studies and experiences shared by the nature-based solutions community.

Programme:
16.00 - Session Opening
16.05 - Sharing experiences of ecosystem restoration as a nature-based solution; Mario Balzan (MCAST & Ecostack Innovation)
16.15 - The EU Nature Restoration Law; Benjamin Casper (European Commission, DG ENV)
16.25 - Mainstreaming Ecological Restoration via EC funded Green Deal Projects; (Sebastian Birk, MERLIN project)
16.35 - Breakout groups and networking session focusing on sharing experiences of ecosystem restoration, barriers and enablers.
17.15 - Plenary Session - Bringing it all together
17.25 - Concluding Remarks; Bettina Wilk (ICLEI & NetworkNature project)

Session description

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