Guidelines for the Development of Upscaling Plans

As noted in the introduction forest restoration is part of several global initiatives, including the UN's restoration decade and the EU's strategies and regulations. Both the global biodiversity framework of the Convention of Biological Diversity and the EU Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR) aim for a 20% restoration of degraded land by 2030. This is challenging but also represent a solid political basis for enhancing forest restoration both within EU as well as in non-EU European countries.

Within the EU, several policies and legislation influence forest restoration and should be consulted to align with and used as motivation for the intended restoration program. These EU policies and instruments are summarized in Fleckenstein & Sotirov (2024), including legally binding directives and non-legally binding strategies and policies. Collectively these provide strong incentives for restoration. For enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem resilience these are also rather well aligned. However, some EU policies are not consistent with each other or may not fully align with national polices and legislation. Hence, we suggest that the upscaling route map should flag the relevance of policies (both with positive and negative impact on the intended restoration) rather than trying to resolve any inconsistency.

The EU NRR is likely be central to large-scale restoration and the associated National Restoration Plans should be considered when addressing policy and legal barrier and for providing guidance for future restoration programmes. It should be noted that the NRR puts special emphasis on the habitat types listed in the Annex I to the Habitats Directive and provides quantitative targets for the years 2030 and 2050. How this translate to actual areas (hectares) will be identified in the National Restoration Plans due in autumn 2026. Hence, linking the intended restoration activities to the national implementation of the NRR can provide strong political and policy support.

Besides EU policies, specific national policies and laws also need to be carefully considered. It is beyond the objective of this guide to analyse national restoration legislation and policies, but Fleckenstein & Sotirov (2024) summarize findings from 30 European countries and address the forest restoration indicators promoted under the NRR.

You should also consider other sectors to ensure that different land-use and socio-economic aspects are considered early in the planning. The scale that you identify for upscaling (e.g. based on ecological and biogeographical aspects) may result in target areas that are shared among different administrative levels (countries, regions, municipalities etc.) and landowners. Hence, the spatial extent of the area influences the range of relevant legal conditions. This means that when you consider administrative/sectoral scales relevant for restoration it is important to address both vertical and horizontal dimensions, i.e., vertically from regional, national to international policies and horizontally across different land use sectors.