Top 10 improvements for the EU's draft Nature Restoration Law
date: 30/03/2023
The EU Nature Restoration Law
Last year, the European Commission published its long-awaited draft proposal for a Regulation on Nature Restoration. The regulation is a landmark step in the EU's efforts to protect and restore damaged European habitats. The proposal states that despite the EU's best efforts, biodiversity loss and habitat degradation is continuing at an alarming rate, although it is well known that healthy ecosystems are essential for our long-term well-being, prosperity and security.
It aims to enable the EU to act with urgency and to start restoring ecosystems based on binding targets and obligations that can already be measured and monitored. This will ensure that Member States can start restoration work without delay. More ecosystems can be included at later stages by developing joint methods to set further targets by amending the regulation. The proposal thus paves the way for a broad range of ecosystems in the EU to be restored and maintained by 2050, with measurable results by 2030 and 2040. It enables the EU to contribute to halting biodiversity loss and bring nature back to good health. It also enables the EU to demonstrate global leadership on protecting nature.
Read more about the EU Nature Restoration Law
Comments from the Green Deal-funded projects
Five large EU-funded research projects (including four funded under Horizon 2020's Green Deal - MERLIN, REST-COAST, SUPERB and WaterLANDS) that operate at the science-policy interface, jointly analysed the text of the draft Nature Restoration Law. They provided recommendations as a result of a science-policy workshop that was held in Brussels in November, organised by the Research Executive Agency of the European Commission and DG R&I, with representatives from the EEA, JRC, DG ENV, DG AGRI, DG MARE, DG REGIO and DG CLIMA.
The policy brief was submitted to the rapporteur and shadow rapporteurs of the EU Parliament's Environmental committee in advance of debates on the draft legislation in 2023.
The recommendations are:
- Increasing the awareness of freshwater ecosystem restoration
- Involving “urban blue spaces” alongside “urban green spaces”
- Improving the compliance with the Water Framework Directive
- Increasing the role of Nature-based Solutions
- Increasing the recognition of wood-based economic activities alongside food production from agriculture throughout the document
- Increasing and specifying targets for the restoration of rivers, standing waters, floodplains and deltas
- Specifying targets for organic soils in agricultural areas
- Using woody riparian vegetation as a key measure in agricultural landscapes
- Including a wider range of indicators that recognise the importance of adaptation of ecosystems as essential to ensure future resilience and functionality
- Strengthening the weak information base on the actual condition and state of biodiversity of European forests
Read more about the recommendations
WaterLANDS partners, the Greifswald Mire Centre and Wetlands International Europe with the support of conservationists and scientists across Europe, have also produced a policy brief that outlines improvements that could be made to the EU's Nature Restoration Law. Furthermore, it calls on decision-makers to amend the proposed targets in line with a pathway that leads to net-zero CO₂ emissions from peatlands by 2050.