Landowners / Practitioners

Forest restoration can mean quite a range of things to different people. And varying definitions and concepts are used by politics, researchers and practitioners including nature conservationists. Restoration definitions can be narrower, focusing on natural forest types or some specific restoration approaches, or broader being more flexible or diverse in the goals of restoration and the approaches to reach them.

Generally speaking, restoration means that people actively or passively improve the structure and functions of an ecosystem to enhance biodiversity, make the ecosystem cope better with disturbances like climate change and pests and diseases and improve the provision of different ecosystem services.

Forests are very diverse across Europe, are managed for different purposes and have different values for specific people and society. Also those factors vary that impact forests and may make them less healthy, diverse and hospitable to all the different organisms that naturally live in these forests.

Therefore, the restoration strategies and approaches may differ from region to region. Very often, the diversification of tree species supported or increasing the amount of deadwood – an essential living space for a huge number of forest species. But also reducing or avoiding clear-cuts and heavy machinery may play a role, creating more diverse tree height structures, introducing rare animal species and many things more. In any case, the concrete way of implementing restoration should always be adjusted to the local conditions and circumstances. And this gives the landowner or the person who typically manages a particular forest a special role in setting priorities and adjusting the concrete measures to the local soil and climatic conditions.