Ep 4: The Brussels wildcard: Europe's new rules for restoration

Wildcard, the forest game, a wildcard production, the Brussels Wildcard, Europe's new rules for restoration. Welcome back to Wildcard, the forest game, a podcast that explores how forests live, breathe and naturally regenerate. I'm your host and game master and today we're taking an extraordinary leap to Brussels, the Wildcard Square that changes the rules for a forest in Europe. Let me roll our dice. The dice shows, Brussels. Here in the heart of the European Union, decisions are made that will shape the future. Of every forest, every wetland, every landscape across our continent. This is where we're wilding strategies meet legislative realities. In June 2024, something extraordinary happened in these Brussels corridors. The European Union approved one of the most ambitious and environmental laws in its history. The Nature Restoration Regulation. The Nature Restoration Regulation is one of the pillars of the European Green Deal. To understand this game-changing regulation, we need a player who knows the rules inside out. Our expert enters the Brussels Square, Utopoulos member of the European Parliament. My name is Utopoulos. I've been a member of Parliament since 2019. Before I enter Parliament, I've been a scientist, I've been an entrepreneur, and now I'm a politician. In all those functions, I might say, I have been fighting for preserving our natural resources, which are the basis for our own civilization. But what exactly are the new rules? The Nature Restoration Law has one very important article, which is article 1, which says 20% of the land and sea area of the European Union restoration measures should be performed or have to be performed. 20% of the entire European Union, that's an area larger than Germany and France combined. But what does restoration actually mean? So restoration measures don't necessarily mean rewilding, because that's what most people understand when I'm talking about restoring nature. They say, "Well, but we can't have wild wilderness everywhere." And so the important issue is that it's not about wilderness everywhere. Of course, if there is space for it, if the respective ecosystem is suited for it, wilderness is a great thing. But we have to acknowledge that a lot of the biodiversity we have, which developed within Europe, was there because of the way we were working with nature, because of the way agriculture was being done for millennium. If you look at a classical grassland, how it used to be in, let's say, 1950 or even 1970, you would have seen a meadow with a lot of flowers, with a lot of bees, a lot of butterflies, all sorts of creatures living on and off that meadow. Today you will probably see a green desert with only one species of grass. So turning that back into a meadow and, of course, harvesting the hay, it's not about taking land out of use, would be a restoration measure. And what does that mean for a forest? If you walk through a forest nowadays, in a lot of places in Europe, this forest will consist of one single tree species, and all trees will have the same age. This is not a forest, this is a plantation of spruce, or any other tree species. So basically, saying, let's turn this forest back into a resilient ecosystem with several tree species, at least five or ten, or if possible, even twenty. Let's have a differentiated structure where not all trees have the same age. This forest will, of course, provide a lot more biodiversity, because a lot more insects will be able to live on and off those trees. A lot more different fungi will be able to thrive in the ground of that forest. And on top, this forest will be much, much more resilient against climate change. And of course, you will be able to harvest wood from that forest. That's what I'm always emphasizing. It's not about taking landscapes out of use. It's just using them smarter, using them in a more sustainable way. But how does this regulation actually work? Is Brussels dictating exactly what each country has to do? The natural restoration regulation is a regulation. So it means it's valid as it stands. Member States are obliged to set up a national nature restoration plan. And there, they have a lot of freedom. Because of course, you cannot make the same obligations for Portugal as for Finland, because you have totally different ecosystems there. But they're obliged to look at what priority ecosystems do we have, or did we have on our area? They also have to monitor certain indicators. So they have to track and monitor in order to see whether they make progress. You're required to monitor the progress. And if you see, okay, we're not making progress. You have to rethink your instruments. So it's quite soft law. It became a soft law during the negotiations, I might say. But all those talks about, well, Member States will be forced to do this or that. It's simply not true. It is simply not true. We do have targets. These targets are set at a European level. And the commission will of course closely look at the nature restoration plans, which the Member States will hand in next year. And in order to assess whether those European targets can be met. The regulation also reaches into our cities. Member States have to make sure that there is no decrease in urban tree cover, rather increase in urban tree cover. And also they have to make sure that they expand green and blue spaces in the cities. Those very, very hot summers are especially dangerous for people in the cities where there is a lot of concrete in stone, which actually stores the heat. So every park, every little lake is actually a matter of health and of well-being for the people that live in the cities. Utah reveals the ultimate goal of this legislative game changer. And of course, the primary issue of the NRL is biodiversity. By using landscapes less intensively, we can leave space for nature to come back. And this will actually be crucial for preserving food security. Every scientist I've spoken to says we will only be able to further grow food in Europe if we do something to increase our soil health. If we do something to increase our water resilience. And if we have space for nature, you will also need less pesticides because the predators for those pests will have a home to live in. Now that we've heard from Utah about the political framework, let me give you the key details. An interest duration regulation focuses on restoring functionality to degraded ecosystems. And 80% of European habitats are currently in poor condition. The law sets ambitious targets for 2030, restore pollinating insects, create diverse forests, and expand urban green spaces. Each member state must create a national restoration plan by 2026. This regulation has the power to transform European landscapes. But laws are one thing, making them work in the real world is another game entirely. How do we turn a Brussels regulation into thriving ecosystems? Let's roll our dice. One, the Netherlands. Our next guest, Walter Helmer, Europe's Rural in Pioneer, has spent 35 years proving that nature can solve socioeconomic challenges. He takes us to Hullar Support, a perfect example of how the nature restoration regulation can transform landscapes and communities. Walter, what did Hullar Support look like 35 years ago versus today? The Hullar Sport 35 years ago, I grew up there as a young boy doing bird watching that kind of stuff. And then it was quite intensively used by farmers with even the flood plains, corn fields, intensively used grasslands surrounded by barbed wire, not accessible for people. There was no forest, there was quite devastating excavations going on, deep pits, sometimes filled up with household waste. The river was very polluted. So that was the situation where I grew up actually. And when you visit the area now, you will see it's full of river and forest, living river dunes, streaming side channels, grazing mosaics, river pool of fish again, and the whole area that now free accessible for people. What an incredible transformation. What was the game-changing strategy? It all started actually with a new vision on flood management. For almost 800 years, water managers, they raised the dikes again and again. In the 80s, a new idea about not raising the dikes but lowering the flood lanes and use clay mining, just peeling off the clay layer from the flood plains, creating room for the river. Clay mining as an ally, brilliant. How did the partnership work? In 1993, we signed the covenant with all the brick factories to do official, shallow clay mining, peeling off the clay layer from the underground, and leave the landscape for nature. And when we had this serious flood in 1995, in which we had to evacuate more than 200,000 people, this approach became a national policy in the Netherlands. So from that time, thousands of hectares are re-wild actually as main reason, lowering the risk of floods in the Netherlands. At the same time, actually, we removed summer dikes around the flood lanes, giving free access to people, but also it's maybe more important to free access to a river, to shake the landscape in the flood lanes. Erosion, sedimentation became important, but the river doesn't only bring sediment, but it also brings seeds of plants, insects, thousands of species coming back to the flood lanes. We brought in keystone species, species that do the fine tuning in the landscape, wild horses, wild cattle, beaver. Perfect passive restoration. What were the economic results? 35 years ago, there were only 50,000 visitors. Now we are talking about more than one and a half million people, bringing more than 25 million years per year extra to the local economy. Value of real estate increased with 10% more than in areas without rewilding. Yes, we lost 30 jobs in farming. We got more than 300 jobs back in nature tourism. Did you have a severe flood again? In 2021, we had the highest flood ever. In the other big river of the Netherlands, the Muse River, after rewilding the flood lanes, we had no damage at all. Stress test done. Stress test passed with flying colors. Now this is crucial for our European audience. What's your advice for other regions wanting to implement similar strategies under the Nature Restoration Regulation? Look in your area for socio-economic issues where nature could be part of the solution, then you should start with pilot projects, just to learn how it works and reality, chronologically, economically and social, and also to have an entrance to the local people, to show them what you are meaning with your ideas, inviting local schools to and start education programs with children on location. That's very important. So, vision and practice combined. And what about working with local communities and politicians? Avoid big egos. What we always did is if a project fails, which also happens, it's our problem. If it's a success, let others show off with that. That's very important. Let's local politicians important people let them become the fathers and mothers of your success. That's very important to win actually. And how do you communicate these complex ideas effectively? Communicate with pictures, not with long text or reports. People don't read reports, but they can see what you mean in drawings, but also in the area itself. And then maybe it's last, don't ask for money for nature, but offer solutions that generate money for nature. That's an important thing. From 50,000 to 1.5 million visitors, from flood damage to flood protection. The Heller support shows the nature restoration regulation isn't just Brussels bureaucracy. It can be a blueprint for prosperity. The dies is shown as the path from policy to practice. But before we conclude, let's hear from our scientific advisor about what this all means for Europe's future. Joining us now is Markus Lindner, head of the resilience program at the European Forest Institute. Markus, what are the key challenges in implementing the nature restoration regulation? I think it's important to realise first of all that there's not just one policy, but there's very different EU policies. As always, it's really a large gap between the EU decisions and then decisions that have to be taken on the ground. It's now up to the countries to develop the national implementation plans. And countries have different approaches? I think the countries have now a choice to make their own preference decisions like where to allocate resources. And they can target more smaller areas, for example, in a 200,000 areas, and then favour them for applying this nature restoration regulation, or they can also target measures which are outside of the protected areas, because nature restoration regulation affects both. We still have the big difference between countries like in the East and Europe where we have a large share of public forests versus other countries where we have a large share of private own forests. So the decision to achieve a certain target is very difficult to implement if you have a large share of private own forests. What about the global perspective? We have a focus on nature restoration now in Europe, but I think it's really important that we are seeing the globe as the the real reference point. So what we should avoid is that we are taking decisions here in Europe, which have like side effects, negative leakage effects affecting other regions on the world. Can you give us a concrete example? For example, if we would set aside large areas of publicly owned forests because there are other ones that are more easily set aside, but then the wood that is produced on those areas is no longer available for utilization in the bi-economy, then this would put a lot of pressure to import larger amounts of wood from the outside of Europe. So this would be not so desirable pathway of implementing a policy, so we always have to have the big holistic effect in mind and consider the global effects and not only the regional to European situation. We can summarize, true sustainability means thinking globally while acting locally. Our forest game continues. In the coming months, we will explore natural forest expansion, how forests reclaim abandoned lands and what this means for biodiversity and communities. Subscribe to WildCard, the forest game for new episodes. Where will our next rule take us? WildCard, the forest game, is a podcast of Sylvia Geraluci for Starder and the WildCard project funded by the European Union. Scientific supervisor Georgi Alberti, University of Odine. Voice over, Rahe Können, European Forest Institute, brand voice, Geyserschef Edeca. Post-production, Santiago Alacón, European Forest Institute. Forest sounds effect, sounds of nature, Louis Meade, André Flupy and Epidemic Sound Music Library.