Systemic solutions for upscaling of urgent ecosystem restoration for forest related biodiversity and ecosystem services

Project Information

SUPERB

Grant agreement ID: 101036849

DOI

10.3030/101036849

Project closed

EC signature date 28 September 2021

Start date 1 December 2021

End date 30 November 2025

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 20 248 122,32

EU contribution

€ 19 996 256,25

Coordinated by

EUROPEAN FOREST INSTITUTE
Finland

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - SUPERB (Systemic solutions for upscaling of urgent ecosystem restoration for forest related biodiversity and ecosystem services)

Reporting period: 2024-12-01 to 2025-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

While numerous political commitments concerning forests are in place at the European (e.g. the EU Biodiversity & Forest Strategies and the recently adopted Nature Restoration Regulation), international (e.g. Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework) and national level, for a large-scale improvement of the forest condition and ensuring its functionality also in the future under global change threats, deep, long-lasting, transformative changes are still needed at various levels.
SUPERB, an initiative led by the European Forest Institute and co-coordinated by Wageningen Environmental Research, is transforming forest restoration in Europe by its inclusive, inter- and transdisciplinary approach. It is making a significant impact by a) the demonstration of diverse restoration and adaptation (=’prestoration’) practices responding to multiple degradation challenges on thousands of hectares of forest landscapes in 12 countries, taking into account the entire socio-ecological system, and b) by creating an enabling environment for restoration across Europe. The key to its success lies in the seamless integration of practical and multidisciplinary scientific knowledge and consideration of widespread barriers and promising enablers to restoration and more biodiversity-friendly forest management, translated into feasible and viable restoration strategies, plans and initiatives.
A key focus of SUPERB is the involvement of relevant stakeholders at all different levels (amongst others 90 Associate Partners) and to learn about the perception of society to ensure suitability and large-scale uptake of sustainable restoration and forest management practices. Another focus is to develop a multitude of useful and practice-oriented support materials on planning, implementing, monitoring and upscaling restoration, which will be made easily accessible on our stakeholder-targeted online Forest Knowledge Gateway. Combining key stakeholders, ambassadors and relevant networks, hands-on restoration efforts, innovation, knowledge-sharing and collaborative learning we pursue our ultimate goal - the creating an enabling environment for the restoration of future-proof, resilient and multifunctional forests across Europe.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

SUPERB has now successfully completed three years of project implementation and is well on track to have fundamental impact on the future of forest restoration in Europe. Currently, seven Work Packages (WPs) are still active, while WP3 on Practical knowledge has completed its work.
Most of the planned restoration actions and the initial success monitoring in our 12 large-scale demo areas have taken place, with some small delays here and there e.g. due to limited seedling availability, bad weather, disturbances, and very lengthy administrative processes. Initial lessons learnt have been drawn, further upscaling activities are being initiated, and upscaling route maps developed.
Impact-oriented stakeholder engagement continues along our sophisticated stakeholder engagement strategy. Transformative narratives guidelines have been developed and our monthly high-level forest restoration talks continue to draw the attention of a diverse and international group of researchers and stakeholders.
All planned efforts to collect (e.g. through questionnaires or national experts writing extensive national narratives) and synthesise practical forest restoration knowledge have been completed.
We have also concluded all data collection and analysis on sustainable financing. Beyond the scientific articles produced, we are extracting a set of lessons-learned for practice and policy makers. The Marketplace concept has also been pushed forward and adapted in collaboration with the Cluster sister project Merlin and Oppla to respect the fast development of similar platforms.
We completed the policy coherence analyses of relevant EU and national (demo countries) laws and/or strategies. Special focus was given to the Nature Restoration Regulation. To assess and provide support to particular restoration conflicts, interviews conducted in several demos, leading to the development of a typology of stakeholder conflicts and respective mitigation approaches. Social media and surveys are being used to explore issues and debates emerging around forest restoration while useful tools and methods are being compiled.
The Forest Restoration Knowledge Base has been further expanded through systematic reviews, learnings derived from soil studies in the demos and a curated selection of highly relevant external materials. Support to the demos for species and provenance selection and selection of best regeneration methods is continuing e.g. through a species support system (still under development): https://seed4forest.vercel.app/. Our sophisticated monitoring approach (chronosequence, acoustic, arthropod and vegetation sampling, terrestrial lidar scanning, airborne LiDAR and multispectral image sampling, eDNA analysis etc.) is progressing well, with the ultimate goal to develop guidelines for cost-efficient monitoring, reporting and verification. Forward projections of key restoration indicators for ecosystem service provision are almost complete and a manual was produced.
The Forest Restoration Gateway technical structure and design has been completed and coding is commencing. The Gateway will be called “Forest Knowledge Gateway: Forest Restoration and Integrative Management” (forest-knowledge.eu).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Forest restoration is a comprehensive endeavour that goes beyond restoring the structure, composition, and functionality of forest habitats; SUPERB employs a forward-looking "prestoration" approach (combining restoration and adaptation e.g. through assisted migration). And restoration also encompasses the social, governance, and financial components to foster sustainable, long term and inclusive initiatives benefiting both nature and society. Through public-facing communication and engagement activities, we aim at presenting vulnerable communities' voices, encourage increased societal awareness and action to invest in and promote nature conservation collaboratively.
The Forest Knowledge Gateway will provide learnings, recommendations and tools targeted to key restoration actors, using appropriate language, level of detail, design and functionality, with topics responding to key stakeholders’ restoration barriers and enablers, supplemented with non-SUPERB resources.
The Marketplace will build on all key principles for prime restoration projects - additionality, leakage, permanence, and ownership/ bundling and include a ‘self-certification’ of project owners regarding these principles, guided by SUPERB knowledge.
The Nature Restoration Regulation provide SUPERB and the cluster of GD Restoration projects with the unique opportunity to support legislators and implementing authorities e.g. regarding the development of National Restoration Plans. Support comes through policy briefs, offered support tools and materials and online and in-person exchanges.
Key connections with the global restoration community have been made by EFI officially joining the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. This boosts our global impact, amongst others through sharing SUPERB best restoration practices through the FERM (Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring) registry.

SUPERB graphical abstract