Resources

This publication reviews best practice cases of Natura 2000 implementation in forests across the EU-28. It highlights examples from 18 countries and includes an in-depth case study of Baden-Württemberg, showcasing how policy, legal and economic measures can support effective management of forest habitats and species.

This publication reviews the implementation of Natura 2000 in forests within the broader EU policy process. It explains how the Habitats and Birds Directives were transposed into national law and enforced, outlines the two main stages of implementation – site designation and management regimes – and analyses forest-specific challenges. The role of EU-level policy, guidance, funding, and stakeholder involvement is highlighted throughout.

Natura 2000 forms the backbone of EU biodiversity conservation policy, with forests representing around 50% of its protected area. This study highlights five key challenges to implementation in forests – from balancing biodiversity and timber use to climate change and funding gaps – and proposes five policy pathways, stressing that a combination of approaches is needed to ensure success.

This study analyses how the EU’s Natura 2000 network has been implemented in Austria. It applies implementation theory to explain delays and differing outcomes across federal states, highlighting the role of administrative capacity, institutional pressures, compliance culture, and stakeholder dynamics. Findings reveal three modes of implementation and ongoing challenges to policy coherence.

This assessment analyses the condition of Europe’s ecosystems and the pressures they face, from intensive land use and pollution to climate change and invasive species. Covering forests, farmlands, wetlands, rivers, lakes, marine and urban ecosystems, it evaluates trends since 2010 and highlights links between ecosystem condition, services to people, and the need for targeted conservation and restoration.

Forests in Europe are strongly affected by climate change, political uncertainties, and fragmented landscapes. Securing a sustainable wood supply requires understanding the key factors influencing forests and implementing evidence-based responses. This synthesis report offers scientific insights and expert knowledge to support stakeholders across the forest value chain and the wood-based sector in addressing these challenges.

Fires may be seen as a threat to forests but they are also an integrated part, natural disturbance, in many forest ecosystems as they shape forest structure and provide important conditions for associated species. Due to more than 100 years of fire suppression in boreal Fennoscandia, fires are now implemented in boreal forests as an important restoration action.

Environmental Education Guide: Find the tree.

- Target audience: 6 to 12 years old
- Recommended number of participants: 10 participants/monitor
- Activity duration: 30 - 40 min
- Recommended season: Spring and summer

This EU policy report explores how forest management can boost carbon sequestration while preserving biodiversity. It reviews practices like afforestation, peatland rewetting, and thinning, assesses their carbon potential, and outlines key challenges for reliable carbon certification.

The Integrate project final report by the European Forest Institute’s Central European Office presents research on integrating biodiversity conservation into forest management. It analyzes forestry impacts, trade-offs, and multifunctional forests, offering cross-border scientific and practitioner insights to support informed policy and practical decisions in Central Europe.

Forests across Europe are under mounting pressure from climate extremes, pests, and rising demand for wood. In a recent article, Prof. Dr. Andreas Rigling (ETH Zurich) highlights how integrated forest management can help maintain biodiversity and essential ecosystem services under these conditions. By combining multifunctional and segregative strategies, this approach promotes natural regeneration, species diversity, and flexible protection measures.

An Excel table that outlines various forest restoration measures and their effects on key soil parameters. This table offers a practical overview for assessing the benefits and limitations of different approaches to forest and soil restoration. Colours indicate a positive or negative effect, while the arrows indicate if there is an increase or decrease of the soil properties. When interpreting this table, it is important to consider that factors like previous land use and implementation quality can strongly influence soil recovery outcomes.

Database of different types of resources to support forest restoration practitioners across Europe. It compiles technical guidelines, textbooks, and scientific articles and reviews that provide guidance on specific restoration practices.

The findings of SUPERB and its sister projects guide countries in drafting National Restoration Plans, required by the new NRR. A March 2025 expert meeting shared tools, lessons, and strategies to support effective, field-tested restoration planning. Check out the report!

We analyzed the role of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and its´ rural development fund in financing relevant measures over time. The importance of CAP funding for relevant measures is very limited due to a low provision of financial resources for forest-related measures and a limited uptake of these funds by EU Member States.

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) aims to reverse ecosystem degradation to benefit biodiversity, climate, and human well-being. It presents a set of Standards of Practice to support effective restoration efforts across all sectors, regions, and ecosystems.

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) aims to reverse ecosystem degradation to benefit biodiversity, climate, and human well-being. It presents ten guiding principles to support effective restoration efforts across all sectors, regions, and ecosystems.

This database compiles responses from 404 restoration practitioners across Europe, analyzing ecological, social, economic, and political factors influencing restoration outcomes. Structured in 56 tables, it offers actionable insights for designing scalable and adaptive restoration strategies.

Seed4Forest is a decision-support tool that helps users select the most suitable tree species, species mixtures, and provenances for any location across Europe. It supports forest restoration through climate-smart forestry by combining up-to-date scientific knowledge with practical guidance for current and future climate challenges.

Monitoring tree planting tracks survival, growth, and quality to ensure that forest restoration is successful. Field teams should use clear protocols and apps to spot issues early, trigger replanting if needed, and collect data e.g. for carbon credits. This report explains how to plan, run, and report monitoring campaigns to improve outcomes of forest restoration and meet stakeholder needs.

This methodological framework enables forest restoration stakeholders and policy makers to assess the coherence of forest restoration policies and practices with the objectives of other forest-related policy areas. This can support the identification of trade-offs and synergies to inform the planning and implementation of forest restoration (policy) initiatives.

Scaling up ecosystem restoration is key to reversing land degradation and biodiversity loss—but real-world efforts face major hurdles. This study across 31 European countries reveals how practitioners navigate ecological, social, and policy challenges, highlighting the need for holistic approaches and better monitoring to ensure restoration success.

The Playbook aims to help restoration project developers understand existing private finance options and assess whether these can be suitable to meet their needs.

Companies are driven by multifaceted factors, with economic motivations including operational management and profitability frequently recorded. Regulatory frameworks motivate corporate engagement through legislation compliance while posing challenges due to regulatory uncertainty and inconsistent policies.

This study examines how people in different European regions perceive and engage with forests and restoration. Through interviews in Sweden, Scotland, Germany, Serbia/Croatia, and Spain, it reveals contrasting views of forests and shows that past restoration focused mainly on biodiversity and hazard mitigation, overlooking other benefits. The findings highlight the need for inclusive restoration that reflects community values and societal attitudes.

What can the Internet and social media tell us about the life of a forest park? As part of SUPERB, we have been studying online engagement to understand more about the social and cultural contexts of forests and forest restoration efforts across Europe. Learn about how the Internet and social media are involved in different to the site known as Queen Elizabeth Forest Park (QEFP) in Scotland.

A systematic review of 71 studies to evaluate the effects of mixed versus pure tree plantations on biodiversity.

At the 10 March 2025 event “Supporting National Restoration Plan Development” in Brussels, SUPERB shared key lessons on adaptive restoration, financing, and stakeholder engagement to support Member States in implementing the EU Nature Restoration Regulation and developing effective National Restoration Plans.

Sweden’s forests are a vital source of food and cultural heritage, supported by the Right to Public Access, or “Allemansrätten.” From berries and mushrooms to game and fish, foraging and hunting connect people to nature. Forest restoration practices like Continuous Cover Forestry promote sustainable food production, benefiting both local communities and biodiversity.

On 31 January 2025, the Italian SUPERB demo partners and EFI co-organized a Public Engagement Workshop with Politecnico di Milano’s Density Design to explore public perceptions of urban nature restoration in Milan. Analyzing social media comments revealed that community concerns often stem from practical urban issues rather than opposition to nature. Effective engagement requires listening, addressing everyday worries, and tailoring communication to connect with diverse audiences.

This publication explores how forest restoration is understood in a European context, identifies potential forest restoration conflicts and explores the relationships between understandings and conflicts. The results are based on 46 interviews with stakeholders across 12 forest restoration case studies in Europe. It finds that stakeholders understand forest restoration in diverse ways and that clashing understandings can lead to conflicts between stakeholders.

Opportunities arise from macroeconomic and regulatory changes, along with various technological and financial innovations and growing professional experience. However, persistent barriers to upscaling include the ongoing lack of highly profitable investment opportunities and the multitude of risks facing investors.

Forest restoration has a deep history shaped by crises, politics, and changing goals. A Europe-wide study with 32 experts from 18 countries revealed key drivers: natural disasters, wars, governance, funding, market shifts, social values, and policies. Success depends on aligning environmental, social, economic, and political factors and avoiding short-term fixes. Learning from past lessons is vital to guide future restoration efforts and implement the new European Nature Restoration Law effectively.

This paper examined narratives from 32 forest restoration experts in 18 European countries to uncover the history of forest restoration in Europe. The study asked experts to delve into six key areas—social, economic, political, technical, environmental and legal— to understand different drivers that shaped forest restoration across Europe.

Scientific article analyzing the evolution of forest restoration in Europe based on expert input from 18 countries. It identifies three phases, showing a shift from disaster response and production to multifunctionality. Environmental, political, legal, social and economic drivers of change are identified and recommendations made.

Active forest restoration combined with assisted Active forest restoration combined with assisted migration (prestoration), i.e. using always the climatically most suitable European tree species and populations, has the long-term potential to enhance carbon sequestration significantly compared to restoration efforts without assisted migration.

Forest restoration workplans describe restoration measures and activities conducted in each SUPERB demonstration area. The workplans serve as a handbook for the demonstration area and provide a practical guide for future forest restoration efforts.

Assessment of initial success and restoration efforts is a monitoring protocol that includes qualitative and quantitative assessment of early stages of restoration success (1-2 years after establishment) and efforts made to achieve a successful restoration.

Forest Storytelling and Engagement for Change offers a range of practical tools and starting points to support those living and working with forests to map which kinds of stories are told and to explore how to tell stories that can make a difference.

In our demo site in Thy, Denmark, students from Billede School joined the SUPERB project to get hands-on with nature restoration. Led by experts from Naturstyrelsen, the students didn’t just learn about biodiversity in the classroom—they ventured into the forest, rolled up their sleeves, and helped create microhabitats. 

Scientific paper that analyzes 95 ecological restoration projects in Europe and identifies 84 indicators used to assess their success. It highlights five common metrics (abundance, cover, density, Ellenberg index, and richness) and emphasizes the need for harmonized indicators to evaluate restoration effectiveness, particularly under climate change. Useful for improving the planning and assessment of restoration initiatives.

Biodiversity credits are emerging for pro-environmental finance. We explore their impact, supply/demand, bundling, and safeguards, reviewing 34 pilots and lessons from offsets and carbon credits. Challenges include additionality, permanence, leakage, and making biodiversity marketable. Robust baselines, standards, and governance are needed to ensure quality and avoid past mistakes.

Continuing to produce nature-based credits using dubious accounting methodologies will yield limited carbon and biodiversity gains. Establishing scientific credibility unlocks the potential of credits to meaningfully contribute to targets of the Paris and Kunming-Montreal agreements.

We compiled a European-wide presence dataset for Corythucha arcuata, an invasive North American insect, to assess its climate-driven spread. Ensemble SDMs project major range expansion, with suitability for key oaks rising from 40–50% to 90%. Host-rich, uncolonized areas underscore urgent management needs.

Assisted migration scenarios were modelled for seven major European tree species. To enhance forest resilience, coniferous trees must be replaced by deciduous species across large portions of their range. Maintaining or even increasing current carbon sinks is only possible if seed provenances adapted to future climate conditions are used.

The EU Forest Strategy promotes payment schemes for private forest owners to support biodiversity. SUPERB’s study shows owners need 40-70% more compensation for result-based schemes. Payment methods like instalments and multiple thresholds could lower costs. Owners’ land enrollment depends on their perceived ability to meet targets and property features.

Global ecosystem restoration targets face slow progress, hindered by funding gaps. While public funds dominate, scaling private finance is crucial but limited by lack of profitable investments. Market mechanisms like voluntary carbon and biodiversity offset markets attract private funds but risk misalignment with social and ecological goals. Strong governance and oversight are essential to ensure positive outcomes.

An 85-year-old woman in Sweden was personally visited by a SUPERB team member to complete a forest perception survey. Over coffee and stories, she shared a lifetime of forest experiences, from managing inherited land to enjoying local woods. Her insights highlighted the deep personal connections people have with forests across generations.

In North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany, where forests suffer from severe dieback after pest outbreaks, restoration is still in early stages. During a SUPERB demo site visit near Arnsberg, over 15 stakeholders joined a public workshop to discuss forest resilience, species selection, hunting, deadwood, and social-ecological restoration challenges.

A noteworthy advancement in replanting efforts has been achieved in Serbia’s Gornje Podunavlje Biosphere Reserve as part of the SUPERB project. Learning from past challenges, particularly drought-related failures in establishing Quercus robur stands, the current approach has been adapted for greater success. 

On February 15, 2024, the SUPERB project hosted a workshop in Brussels with participants from Directorate-Generals of the European Commission, Member State authorities, stakeholder groups, and scientists. Discussions focused on aligning EU and national forest restoration policies, addressing challenges, and exploring synergies to enhance forest resilience and ecosystem services.

In this study we find a high degree of overlap in the broad biodiversity metrics used in environmental valuation compared to conservation and ecology. However, the measures generally fail to capture the ecosystem processes driving biodiversity persistence.

In the Dutch SUPERB demo area, forests on degraded sandy soils are being restored through aerial application of nutrient-rich rock dust and planting of rich litter tree species like hazel, lime, and maple. These measures aim to improve soil health and forest vitality across 60 hectares owned by 16 private forest owners.

The first-year anniversary of the SUPERB Po Valley demo site in Italy marked significant progress in forest restoration efforts. The project focused on reintroducing native species, enhancing biodiversity, and engaging local stakeholders through workshops and field activities. These initiatives aim to restore ecological balance and promote sustainable forest management in the region.

The SUPERB project hosted Irish Coillte forestry staff in Germany to share insights on forest resilience and restoration. Ireland’s mainly spruce plantations face replanting challenges, and Coillte’s new plan aims to boost biodiversity and resilience. The visit highlighted lessons from beetle outbreaks and forest management strategies to prepare Ireland’s forests for future climate risks.

Assessment of initial situation is a monitoring protocol that describes setup design and methodology used to assess the current state of forest before applying any restoration measures.

Tropical storm Vaia (2018) devastated Northern Italy’s Asiago Plateau, felling over 14 million trees. The Asiago Oltre Vaia project, led by local authorities and partners, aims to restore forests with diverse species to boost resilience and biodiversity. Using science and eco-friendly methods, they monitor plantings to create stronger forests for the future.

The workshop "Making people part of ecosystem restoration in Europe" brought together experts to discuss improving stakeholder engagement. Challenges like lack of funding and local commitment emerged, but creative approaches using art helped reconnect people emotionally to landscapes. The event highlighted that meaningful, early, and open engagement is key to successful restoration.

In this SUPERB/IUFRO Forest Restoration Talk, George Gann presents SER’s new Standards of Practice and insights from the Mediterranean. Dr. Michael Kleine adds perspectives on science, training, and forest restoration guidelines, sharing experiences from practical implementation.

This study evaluates England’s new biodiversity net gain (BNG) policy. Analyzing major developments from 2020–2022, it finds 27% of biodiversity units at high risk of noncompliance due to governance gaps. Errors in BNG calculations were common, and under-resourced councils often approved flawed plans. Stronger governance and monitoring are needed to ensure policy effectiveness.