European Union Nature Restoration Law

The regulation combines a general restoration target for the long-term recovery of nature in EU terrestrial and marine areas with binding restoration targets for specific habitats and species. These measures should cover at least 20% of EU land and marine areas by 2030 and ultimately all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. The regulation contains the following specific objectives: targets based on existing legislation ( for wetlands, forests, grasslands, rivers and lakes, heaths and shrublands, rocky habitats and dunes) that seek to improve and restore large-scale biodiverse habitats and recover populations of species by improving and expanding their habitats; pollinating insects, reverse the decline in pollinator populations by 2030 and achieve a growing trend for these populations, with a methodology for regular monitoring of pollinators; forest ecosystems, achieve an increasing trend in standing and fallen dead wood, uneven-aged forests, forest connectivity, abundance of common forest birds and organic carbon reserve; urban ecosystems, do not lose urban green space or tree cover by 2030 and steadily increase their total area from 2030; agricultural ecosystems, increasing grassland butterflies and farmland birds, the organic carbon pool in cropland mineral soils, and the proportion of farmland with high diversity landscape characteristics; restore drained peatlands under agricultural use; marine ecosystems, restore marine habitats such as seagrass meadows or sedimentary bottoms that provide significant benefits, including climate change mitigation, and restore the habitats of iconic marine species such as dolphins and porpoises, sharks and seabirds; river connectivity, identify and remove barriers preventing surface water connectivity, so that at least 25,000 km of rivers are restored to a free-flowing state by 2030.