Towards a European Seagrass Restoration Alliance
The 2025 European Seagrass Restoration Workshop will take place in Bassin d’Arcachon, France, from April 8th to April 10th 2025. The theme of the 2nd European Seagrass Restoration Workshop is ‘From Competition to Coalition: Towards a European Seagrass Restoration Alliance‘.
Why the theme?
Due to a significant lack of funding in biodiversity financing there has often been more pressure for restoration practicioners to actively work against each other than there has been for them to work together – but this kind of competition comes at a cost to everyone. From Competition to Coalition recognises that ESRA will be a group of people and organisations working together to achieve something – the recovery of European seagrass ecosystems.
An “Alliance” can be defined as a “a union or association formed for mutual benefit, especially between countries or organisations” (Oxford English Dictionary), and it is exactly this mutually beneficial environment between countries or organisations that we are trying to foster through the creation of the European Seagrass Restoration Alliance (ESRA).
The use of “Towards a...” is also an acknowledgement that building a real alliance takes time, and that the 2nd European Seagrass Restoration Workshop is just a step along the journey towards that ultimate goal.
The rationale for creating ESRA today comes from the knowledge that we are at an ‘inflection point’ in Europe when it comes to nature restoration, and that now is the time to come together across species specialisms to speak with one voice for seagrass.
An inflection point?
Today the UN Decade On Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) is empowering a global movement of nature restoration programmes and seagrass ecosystems are no exception. The UN Decade has been designed to connect and empower the actions of the many, and it is in this spirit that the 2nd European Seagrass Restoration Workshop (ESRW2) has been organised. We hope ESRW2 will enable groups and individuals to get informed about restoration opportunities and collaborations in their area, and to connect with colleagues across Europe who are working in this same space.
Of course within the European Union we are also in a new paradigm with the EU Nature Restoration Law entering into force in August 2024. Whilst this regulation does not cover all countries in Europe, it is providing a huge inertia in the region. The EU Nature Restoration Law is doing this by setting binding targets to restore degraded ecosystems, particularly those with the most potential to capture and store carbon.
European seagrass ecosystems are going to be in the spotlight like never before.
As was discussed at the excellent ISBW15 in Napoli, today’s environmental changes are transforming seagrass ecosystems into new configurations and trying to return to past configurations is often no longer an option.
Our challenge as a European seagrass restoration community is to establish a resource baseline, and then to protect, restore, and rehabilitate the existing resource.
In order to start to address this challenge we have organised ESRW2 into three themes (one for each of the three days of the programme).
– Tuesday 8th April (Day 1) : Past, Present and Future.
– Wednesday 9th April (Day 2) : Mechanisms for change.
– Thursday 10th April (Day 3) : Seagrass, Seascape and Society.