Restoration Landscapes
From mountains to oceans, forests to wetlands – ELP-funded Restoration Landscapes Projects are harnessing natural processes to demonstrate replicable ways of bringing back nature and restoring degraded landscapes.
Experience shows us that when exploitative activities end, barriers to recovery are removed, and nature is given time to heal itself, degraded landscapes can recover – providing benefits for people and the planet. However, many environments have been so transformed, and natural processes so disrupted, that nature needs a helping hand. For example, by eradicating invasive species, removing barriers that disrupt the natural flow of rivers, or reintroducing key species that shape a landscape’s ecology. It may also be necessary to address the root causes of degradation – through changes to legislation, environmental governance or economic incentives.
Through its Restoration Landscapes Projects, the Endangered Landscapes Programme is funding large-scale restoration in marine and terrestrial habitats across Europe, reversing impacts of unsustainable use and creating places that deliver long-term benefits for nature and people. From rugged river valleys in Western Iberia to the forests of Eastern Europe and the waters off Turkey’s Mediterranean coastline, these projects illustrate the benefits and transformation that are possible when space is given to nature at the landscape scale.
