Nature restoration at eLTER sites to strengthen policy support

Achieving global and EU restoration targets (e.g. UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, EU Green Deal and EU Nature Restoration Regulation, NRR) poses challenges such as the need for long-term understanding of ecosystem functioning and effective monitoring of restoration success, interdisciplinary collaboration, suitable reference ecosystems, and sustained funding. Yet, these conditions are often lacking, limiting the effectiveness of restoration. The Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research Network (eLTER) can address these challenges providing added-value services through long-term understanding of ecosystem structure, functioning and services in response to different environmental impacts, complemented by its rich experience in interdisciplinary collaboration and standardized monitoring methods for different ecosystems. As there are many ecosystem restoration projects implemented at eLTER sites across Europe, the network can help identify best restoration practices and support the implementation of the EU NRR. Our vision is to include ecological restoration experience in the Research Infrastructure (RI) development process of eLTER and design services that could result in synthesised, actionable knowledge to reverse biodiversity loss. include ecological restoration experience in the Research Infrastructure (RI) development process of eLTER and design services that could result in synthesised, actionable knowledge to reverse biodiversity loss. The workshop aims to review the outcomes of efforts so far based on four previous workshops and discuss the possible design of a Topic Centre on restoration within the future eLTER RI. Draft service conceptualization and planned synthesis tasks to produce knowledge products will be developed at the workshop 4-7 March 2025, in Hungary. The outcomes of this previous workshop with other sources will be discussed in Tampere with a broader audience covering eLTER experts and also restoration scientists and practitioners outside the network. Discussions will cover how to pull the knowledge together, synthesize the information towards an attractive and efficient knowledge sharing system, and to identify options for policy user services related to restoration actions. This might cover guidance on methods that work or work not, approaches to be applied in different ecosystems, barriers to restoration, stakeholder involvement, metadata knowledge base and others. A framework for networking and collaboration with other initiatives, like the BiodivRestore Knowledge Hub, the Society for Ecological Restoration Europe (SERE) or BioAgora project will also be discussed. The outcome of this workshop is intended to be submitted to the coordination of the eLTER RI process for consideration. The Interim Council of eLTER will decide on adopting the ideas and delegating the tasks to countries taking up the lead towards implementation. The target audience may come from sites or organizations doing restoration and others who are interested in providing evidence to the EU NRR, also at local or national level, and want to be more organised to support restoration decisions, plus being more active in the science-policy interface.