Living labs co-creating solutions for the restoration of ecosystems addressing implementation bottlenecks and improving resilience to risks

Expected Outcome: Proposals are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes: stakeholders are empowered to co-create, deploy and replicate viable ecosystem restoration measures leading to their wider uptake, with solutions to address implementation bottlenecks and financing issues; competent authorities in charge of implementing the EU Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR) can design and reuse effective deployment frameworks, informed by evidence and lessons generated through living labs across different contexts; social, economic and environmental co-benefits, risks and trade-offs of nature restoration activities are demonstrated, addressed and made explicit to support informed decision-making and scaling, including, where appropriate, potential One Health aspects. Scope: The NRR requires Member States to put in place area-based restoration measures, including Nature-based solutions, as highlighted and recommended in both the EU Climate adaptation strategy and in the European Water Resilience Strategy. Notably measures to implement the NRR article 9 on free-flowing rivers support the objectives of the European Water Resilience Strategy to restore and protect the water cycle, and the Water Framework Directive objective of good ecological status of rivers. NRR Article 11 on the restoration of agricultural ecosystems aims inter alia at developing high-diversity landscape features. Related strategies: the Vision for Agriculture and Food, the EU soil strategy for 2030, the EU Forest Strategy for 2030, the new EU bioeconomy strategy and the European Ocean Pact reflect the objectives of the NRR. The communication on integrated wildfire risk management[1] highlights the need for more research on preventive restoration integrating wildfire prevention and post-fire recovery objectives in nature restoration activities. More science-based operational restoration approaches are needed to identify scalable solutions that overcome implementation bottlenecks, notably financing. Nature restoration can deliver major biodiversity, climate adaptation, water resilience and overall One Health benefits. However, in some contexts, restoration may also modify the suitability of habitats (for instance disease vectors and reservoir/host communities). Proposals are therefore encouraged to consider these aspects in cooperation with relevant public health and environmental authorities. Synergies with the EU Carbon Removal and Carbon Farming (CRCF) Regulation which supports result-based incentives for carbon farming and carbon removal activities that demonstrate co-benefits for biodiversity and ecosystem services have to be developed. Living labs[2] are expected to foster collaboration between sectors and communities through a strong place-based approach to co-design and co-create systemic solutions and to function as learning environments that enable reflection, comparison and feedback on implementation pathways, governance arrangements and enabling conditions for ecosystem restoration. Proposals should: support the set-up of three new living labs, with 8 to 15 experimental sites each, across different ecosystems, as places for co-creating, testing and demonstrating innovative solutions to restore ecosystems following three main principles: (i) co-creation with a large and balanced set of stakeholders e.g. researchers, land and water managers (including farmers and foresters) and/or owners, policy decision makers, economic actors, civil society, social partners, municipalities and regions interested in nature restoration ensuring an adequate representation of primary-sector actors, (ii) activities carried out in real-life settings and (iii) involving stakeholders (including practitioners) at all stages of development; cover different geographical regions or climate zones and at least three different EU Member States and/or Associated Countries, including sites in outermost regions; address gender dimension; establish a work plan of acti... Source: EU Funding & Tenders Portal (CC BY 4.0).