Policy Actors
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Elena, community forest NGO
I help local stakeholders engage in policy development. When a new policy is being developed, I have to be able to explain to my stakeholders and capture their response in a way that will have an impact.
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Peter, policy-maker
I'm not a specialist in forestry! I have to quickly fully pull together briefings on complex topics and use non-technical language. I want to get to the key issues fast, understand the evidence and how reliable it is, hear stakeholder opinions, and find engaging examples from my country.
Are you a policymaker or professional whose work is closely intertwined with policy? Whether you’re developing and implementing a policy at regional, national, or international level, or feeding into the policy development process with your expertise and experience, you’re in the right place. Explore our example user profiles to get a better idea of whom this page is meant for and uncover key enablers and barriers for forest restoration that are especially relevant for your work.
Introduction
As someone involved in forest policy, your work is vital to ensure well-functioning forests on a large-scale. You have unique leverage points compared to other stakeholders, including being able to influence action across multiple land ownerships. You also have access to different perspectives across the forest sector and other relevant sectors. At the same time, you face different challenges compared with those who are directly managing their own forests. In order to tackle these challenges, it will be vital for you to have rapid access to relevant, reliable evidence in non-technical language.
We have worked with a wide range of representatives at many levels and explored key themes and areas of interest. Through this process, we have identified the following five areas as being crucial for policy stakeholders working on forest restoration. These areas can either drive progress as an enabler, or present challenges as a barrier.
1. Restoration Concepts and Approaches
Restoration is the process of actively or passively assisting the recovery of an ecosystem in order to improve its structure and functions, with the aim of conserving or enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. Restoration means different things to different stakeholder groups – some may focus on the processes, others on the outcomes. In policy work it is extremely important to ensure a shared understanding (or at least recognise the different understandings) before engaging in the subject. In these pages we highlight useful material covering restoration concepts, the underlying need for restoration – forest degradation, and the range of different approaches taken to restoration in Europe.
2. European Policy Landscape
To understand how forests are managed in Europe, you first need to look at the complex policy landscape that shapes them. Forests are governed by a mix of policies at EU, national, and regional levels, often coming from different sectors. This diversity of instruments, and sometimes conflicting priorities, plays a central role in determining how forests are managed, conserved, and used.
5. Upscaling Restoration
Europe has long pursued nature restoration, yet efforts remain far below what is needed to halt biodiversity loss and address climate change. Bridging the gap between ambitious policies and on-the-ground action requires adaptive frameworks, upscaling of local successes, and long-term strategies.