Between 21 and 22 November, REST-COAST joined the Restoration Cluster meeting in Dublin, Ireland. Formed by the four Green Deal projects REST-COAST, SUPERB, MERLIN and WaterLANDS, the Cluster focused on restoring biodiversity and ecosystem services.

The collaboration of the Cluster is expected to contribute to the ambitions of the EU Biodiversity Strategy through hands-on restoration activities and the development of resources and tools that can support mainstreaming of large-scale restoration activities in Europe.

Hence, hosted by the WaterLANDS project, the meeting aimed at identifying main areas of collaboration among the projects with particular focus on financial models, developing an action plan and get the perspective from the Research Executive Agency (REA).

Members of the Restoration Cluster at the joint meeting in Dublin.

More than 20 participants both online and on site, engaged in a discussion focused on identifying common issues on financial developments of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) restoration interventions experienced by the four projects in their pilots. Such an assessment helped to define common objectives and activities for widening the contribution of the Cluster to NBS restoration in Europe, looking at different aspects for finance and governance related work, including role of data and indicators, expectations and contribution from stakeholders and financial investors.

On behalf of REST-COAST, the project coordinator Agustin Sanchez Arcilla (UPC) and Umberto Pernice (PCIM) - project partner and leader of the task devoted to develop business plans for upscaling coastal restoration, contributed to the meeting with different presentations focused respectively on “Role of stakeholders” and “Database for coastal Restoration and “Financial arrangements and business models“. Moreover, Jocken Hinkel and Fausto Favero, from Global Climate Forum, contributed to the meeting with a presentation on Financial arrangements and business plans for restoration upscaling.