Policy Brief: Common challenges in implementing forest restoration

This policy brief brings together scientific knowledge and hands-on experience from SUPERB's 12 large-scale forest restoration initiatives across Europe, offering timely and practical guidance for policymakers, forest managers, and other key stakeholders.

The brief underlines that restoring forests is not a single action, but a long-term, multi-phase process. Effective restoration typically moves from assessing initial conditions and drivers of degradation, through planning and implementation, to long-term maintenance, monitoring, and evaluation. Success depends on flexibility, adaptive management, and strong engagement with multiple stakeholders, including forest owners, local communities, policymakers, and practitioners.

In the face of climate change, increasing disturbances, and shifting socio-economic demands, the policy brief stresses the need for future-oriented restoration targets. These should focus not only on biodiversity, but also on the ecosystem services forests provide – such as carbon storage, water regulation, and recreation – and the ecological processes that sustain them. Because the benefits of restoration often become visible only after decades, the brief highlights the critical importance of sustained funding for monitoring and adaptive management.

Drawing on insights from SUPERB's 12 large-scale forest restoration demonstration areas across Europe, the authors identified shared challenges despite the diversity of forest types, ownership structures, and management traditions. Key issues include high ungulate browsing pressure that damages young trees and increases restoration costs, difficulties in engaging private forest owners – who manage around 60% of Europe’s forests – and constraints related to forest reproductive materials, such as shortages of climate-adapted seeds and seedlings.

To address these challenges, the brief puts forward clear and actionable recommendations. These include increasing flexibility in restoration objectives and timelines, adapting hunting and forest reproductive materials legislation, and strengthening monitoring of browsing impacts. Further recommendations suggest improving dialogue among forest managers, hunters, and communities, and supporting nurseries through long-term planning and investment. The authors also call for contingency planning to cope with natural disturbances and for the strategic use of pioneer and climate-adapted species to build resilient mixed forests.

By translating lessons learned from real-world restoration efforts into policy-relevant recommendations, the policy brief provides a valuable roadmap for scaling up forest restoration across Europe. At a time when resilient forests are more important than ever, it offers concrete guidance to help turn ambitious restoration commitments into lasting outcomes.

Reference: Filipek, S., Jacobs, S., Nabuurs, GJ., Barnkob Lehrmann, M., Bílek, L., Campana, F., Cotten, L., de Dios, J., de Graaf, M., de Guerry, B., Đodan, M., Galić, Z., Gallego, R., García, R., Gómez Fernández, M., Granberg, Å., Hoch, T., Jactel, H., Janzen, L., Lastra González, D., Lindner, M., Locatelli, T., Marušák, R., Mijatović, L., Nicoll, B., Oleagordia, Í., Olsen, H., Orazio, C., Olrik, D. C., Raats, L., Saini, M., Schmidt, C., Svoboda, M., Svensson, J., Tognetti, R., Vacchiano, G., Zorić, M., Zotta, M., Schatzdorfer, E. (2025): Common challenges in implementing forest restoration: Experiences from 12 large-scale demonstration areas across Europe. Policy brief. https://doi.org/10.36333/rs15