2.4 Restoration plan
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Marta Nowack
“I need to create a new management plan for my forest area. I want to increase biodiversity and adapt my forest to climate change, whilst not changing much of our current way of doing things, and I would like to understand how to move forwards with this.”
The restoration plan is a foundational component of any forest restoration initiative and may cover a local up to a larger landscape extent. Starting from the long-term vision for a restored ecosystem, it outlines the concrete steps needed to achieve this vision based on the current state of the forest. Beyond serving as a technical guide for a restoration project, the plan aligns stakeholders (see also chapter 2.7 Co-design/-development with stakeholders), prioritizes actions, and creates a shared roadmap that can be adjusted over time as conditions change, or new knowledge emerges.
A comprehensive restoration plan typically includes the following key elements:
- 1. Restoration goals: A clear description of the desired future forest conditions, the main drivers of degradation to be dealt with, and specific ecological and social objectives to be achieved.
- 2. Baseline assessment: An evaluation of the current state of the forest to understand existing conditions and serve as a reference point for tracking progress (see chapter 1.3 Baseline monitoring).
- 3. Restoration activities: A description of planned actions, such as soil rehabilitation, reforestation, or control of invasive species, including estimated costs and long-term maintenance requirements.
- 4. Monitoring and evaluation: A framework for measuring ecological and social indicators over time to assess restoration success relative to targets, and to guide adaptive decision-making.
- 5. Stakeholder engagement: A strategy for involving local communities, landowners, institutions, and other relevant actors.
- 6. Long-term vision and learning: A forward-looking perspective that incorporates continuous improvement, promotes biodiversity and resilience, and facilitates knowledge exchange across projects and regions.
- 7. Upscaling potential: Analysis and description of the potential of surrounding or degraded areas for an expansion or replication of the proposed restoration measures. For a focus on upscaling, and learning how to develop upscaling route-maps and start the process of planning the upscaling already before implementing the pilot activities, see chapter 4.4.
A well-developed restoration plan is not static: it should be a living document that evolves in response to ecological and social feedback, and to new information in general. Its strength lies not only in outlining what to do, but in enabling practitioners to learn, adapt, and collaborate over the full duration of the restoration efforts.
Related resources
Supporting National Restoration Plan Development
At the 10 March 2025 event “Supporting National Restoration Plan Development” in Brussels, SUPERB shared key lessons on adaptive restoration, financing and stakeholder engagement to support Member States in implementing the EU Nature Restoration Regulation and developing effective National Restoration Plans.
Restoring after forest dieback: First Public Engagement Workshop in our German demo area
In North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany, where forests suffer from severe dieback after pest outbreaks, restoration is still in early stages. During a SUPERB demo site visit near Arnsberg, over 15 stakeholders joined a public workshop to discuss forest resilience, species selection, hunting, deadwood, and social-ecological restoration challenges.
Comments on the draft Nature Restoration Law
The recommendations listed on this policy brief result from a science-policy workshop hold in Brussels in November 2022 that was organised by the Research Executive Agency of the European Commission and DG R&I, and attended by the project coordinators and by representatives of EEA, JRC, DG-ENV, DG-AGRI, DG-MARE, DG-REGIO and DG-CLIMA.
Restoration Project Developers’ Playbook on Private Finance (Europe)
For restoration project developers to gain access to funding, they must first understand the various sources of finance available and how to access them. The Restoration Project Developers’ Playbook on Private Finance (Europe) aims to help restoration project developers understand existing private finance options and assess whether these can be suitable to meet their needs.
Forest restoration in practice
Forest restoration workplans describe restoration measures and activities conducted in each SUPERB demonstration area. The workplans serve as a handbook for the demonstration area and provide a practical guide for future forest restoration efforts.
European forest restoration: urgently needed, but where and how?
This webinar, organized by SUPERB and IUFRO, provides a critical view of how habitat status of Europe’s forests is currently assessed and what role data provided by National Forest Inventories can play to inform about forest restoration in Europe. We also take a deep plunge into our SUPERB demo areas and discover the real-life challenges they are facing to implement restoration on the ground.
- Integrative Forest Management
- Legal & Regulatory
- Planning & Upscaling
- Funders & Investors
- Planners & Implementers
- Policy Actors
- Climate change mitigation
- Restoration after direct human impact
- Restoration after natural disturbances
- Soil health
- Tree species/functional diversity
- Atlantic
- Continental
- Croatia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Italy
- Netherlands
- Romania
- Serbia
- Spain
Restoration Knowledge Base
Database of different types of resources to support forest restoration practitioners across Europe. It compiles technical guidelines, textbooks, and scientific articles and reviews that provide guidance on specific restoration practices.
Forest and Soil Restoration Table
An Excel table that outlines various forest restoration measures and their effects on key soil parameters. This table offers a practical overview for assessing the benefits and limitations of different approaches to forest and soil restoration. Colours indicate a positive or negative effect, while the arrows indicate if there is an increase or decrease of the soil properties. When interpreting this table, it is important to consider that factors like previous land use and implementation quality can strongly influence soil recovery outcomes.