It is planned that the European Commission will submit its long-awaited proposals for binding nature restoration targets this week, although delays are always a possibility. FACE believes the proposals are a significant step towards ensuring that the core substance of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 is put into action.

Europe's 7 million hunters have been actively involved in habitat restoration at their own expense for decades. They will welcome the new initiative as an important step towards improving the status of small game populations. Hunters know from personal experience that this is the best approach to achieving results.

The previous target, namely to restore at least 15% of degraded ecosystems by 2020, was not achieved, partly because appropriate data was not obtained and there was a lack of political will to act accordingly. To avoid failure this time, a two-fold approach is needed:

Concrete commitments regarding specific habitat/ecosystem types linked to the targets, tasks, criteria, measurements, and management set out in the new legislation (for example, restoration measures for x%, restoration of freshwater ecosystems and free-flowing rivers, the proportion of agricultural land with natural landscape features such as hedges, and x% of drained peatlands restored to wetlands);

A broader strategy with guidelines and binding targets for ecosystem restoration by 2030 (and beyond), under which member states would be required to develop national nature restoration plans. Both of the aforementioned initiatives should work in parallel, keeping in mind that the former will yield results over a shorter timeframe.
Photo by Caice Rocha used