4.5 Continuous engagement, information sharing and community building
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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.”
Continuous engagement, information sharing, and community building in restoration projects are about maintaining strong relationships, transparency, and shared ownership throughout the entire lifecycle of a project.
Continuous Engagement can happen via regular meetings and field visits. You can organize seasonal or quarterly gatherings on-site to discuss progress, challenges, and next steps. An alternative option is to set up community or multi-stakeholder advisory boards that meet regularly and help guide implementation. Furthermore, when local stakeholders are trained to participate in biodiversity or carbon monitoring, they can contribute to the outcomes of the project.
Community Building strengthens the local identity and long-term support for restoration. Practical Strategies can be community events, like hosting tree planting days, restoration festivals, or citizen science weekends to celebrate milestones. Another option are youth & schools programs: by engaging the next generation through educational activities, school gardens, or junior ranger program you foster long-term commitment and support. Finally, make sure to respect and include local traditions, values, and knowledge systems in restoration goals and messaging,
Finally, information sharing is crucial to ensure transparency, trust, and access to knowledge. Practical Strategies are websites, newsletters and social media to prepare updates to different stakeholders (landowners, youth, NGOs, policymakers) in either more general or targeted ways. Furthermore, you can share personal stories of restoration champions and local voices
Related resources
Young Guardians in the Forest
In our demo site in Thy, Denmark, students from Billede School joined the SUPERB project to get hands-on with nature restoration. Led by experts from Naturstyrelsen, the students didn’t just learn about biodiversity in the classroom—they ventured into the forest, rolled up their sleeves, and helped create microhabitats.
Rethinking Nature Restoration: Listening to Communities for Lasting Change
On 31 January 2025, the Italian SUPERB demo partners and EFI co-organized a Public Engagement Workshop with Politecnico di Milano’s Density Design to explore public perceptions of urban nature restoration in Milan. Analyzing social media comments revealed that community concerns often stem from practical urban issues rather than opposition to nature. Effective engagement requires listening, addressing everyday worries, and tailoring communication to connect with diverse audiences.
A really nice forest chat
An 85-year-old woman in Sweden was personally visited by a SUPERB team member to complete a forest perception survey. Over coffee and stories, she shared a lifetime of forest experiences, from managing inherited land to enjoying local woods. Her insights highlighted the deep personal connections people have with forests across generations.
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.
“Making people part of ecosystem restoration in Europe”
The workshop "Making people part of ecosystem restoration in Europe" brought together experts to discuss improving stakeholder engagement. Challenges like lack of funding and local commitment emerged, but creative approaches using art helped reconnect people emotionally to landscapes. The event highlighted that meaningful, early, and open engagement is key to successful restoration.
Stories as enablers for ‘deepscaling’ forest restoration
Science is vital for forest restoration, but lasting change also needs powerful stories. SUPERB aims for systems change by restoring forests and shifting how communities value them. Stories, whether on YouTube or shared locally, shape perceptions, inspire action, and connect people to forests, fostering deeper cultural and relationship changes alongside scientific efforts.
Forest Storytelling and Engagement for Change
Forest Storytelling and Engagement for Change offers a range of practical tools and starting points to support those living and working with forests to map which kinds of stories are told and to explore how to tell stories that can make a difference.
Forest Landscape Restoration & Local community involvement
In the third of the SUPERB/IUFRO “Monthly Forest Restoration Talks”, hosted in January 2023, Markus Höhl, technical project manager at the International Climate Initiative (IKI), discusses how to fulfil promises of local community involvement to deliver on forest landscape restoration.
Exploring societal perceptions of forests, ecosystem benefits, and restoration
This study examines how people in different European regions perceive and engage with forests and restoration. Through interviews in Sweden, Scotland, Germany, Serbia/Croatia, and Spain, it reveals contrasting views of forests and shows that past restoration focused mainly on biodiversity and hazard mitigation, overlooking other benefits. The findings highlight the need for inclusive restoration that reflects community values and societal attitudes.