Forest Restoration Projects Database

This database is an output of the Horizon 2020 project SUPERB and brings together information on forest restoration projects from across Europe from a multitude of sources. It aims to make ongoing and completed restoration efforts more visible and easier to explore for practitioners, decision-makers, researchers, and the interested public. We searched for projects that were executed between 1990 and 2024, so the database collects activities of the last 34 years. However, documentation has drastically improved in the last decade.

EU-funded projects
Many forest restoration activities in Europe are supported by EU funding programmes (e.g. INTERREG and LIFE). We explored the public project portals of these programmes, as well as other EU information sources, to identify projects that include forest or tree-based restoration activities. 
Projects were selected if they focused on forests, wooded landscapes, river-side forests, or other areas dominated by trees and woody vegetation. This includes a wide range of restoration approaches, such as tree planting, natural forest regeneration, habitat improvement, and the development of forest management or restoration plans. Projects focusing only on agriculture, grasslands, or marine and coastal ecosystems were excluded unless forests or trees were clearly part of the work.
After careful review, 696 EU-funded forest restoration projects were included in the database. Where possible, links and project descriptions were added to support informational content.

National and local projects
Forest restoration also happens beyond EU-funded programmes, often driven by national authorities, local initiatives, research institutions, non-governmental organisations, private forest owners, or local community groups. To capture these efforts, we searched a wide range of collections, project platforms, and websites across Europe.
This included information from forest agencies and their activities, universities study sites, environmental organisations, international networks, national parks, and other restoration platforms. For each European country, multiple sources were explored to identify forest restoration actions at national or local level. 
Through this process, 994 nationally or locally initiated forest restoration projects were added to the database. Some databases have not been exploited fully. They can be found under the tab "dataSources".