Lake – Photo by Rachel Claire on Pexels
(BRUSSELS) – The European Parliament and Member States agreed Thursday to set a target for the EU to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.
Once adopted and applied in the EU Member States, the provisionnally agreed Nature Restoration Law is seen as a key contribution to reaching climate neutrality by 2050 and increasing Europe’s preparedness and resilience to the effects of climate change.
The law should set in motion a process for continuous and sustained recovery of nature across the EU’s land and sea. As an overall target to be reached on EU level, Member States will put in place restoration measures in at least 20 % of the EU’s land areas and 20 % of its seas by 2030. By 2050 such measures should be in place for all ecosystems that need restoration.
The law will help the EU and its Member States meet the restoration target they committed to under the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework at the biodiversity COP15 in December 2022.
Different restoration targets will apply to different ecosystems, and Member States will decide the specific measures that will apply on their territories. For this purpose, they will develop national restoration plans, with restoration needs and measures adapted to the local context and a timeline for their implementation. They will develop these plans involving local communities and civil society.
The plans should seek synergies with climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation and disaster prevention, as well as with agriculture and forestry.
Specific objectives for various ecosystems will cover for example improving the state of the EU’s key land and marine habitats, urban ecosystems, rivers and floodplains, or improving pollinator diversity.
The European Parliament and the Council will now formally have to adopt the new Regulation. Once this is done, it will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU. Member States will then need to submit their first nature restoration plan to the Commission within two years of the entry into force.
Commission page on nature restoration law
Nature restoration (background information)
Biodiversity: how the EU protects nature (background information)
