EUSTAFOR attends Superb Workshop in Bonn

Project SUPERB organized an excursion and workshop in Bonn. The title of the meeting was: Making it Happen: Strategies for Large-scale Forest Restoration in Europe. The workshop brought together twenty forestry experts from public and private forest management entities, government bodies, organisations working with landowners and non-profit agencies. They represented fourteen countries spanning all the regions of Europe. The participants of different backgrounds we were looking for answers to the question “What is needed for upscaling forest restoration in Europe and how do we move it forward?”

On the 21^st of May we had a field trip to the municipal forest of the city of Gevelsberg in North Rhine-Westphalia, overseen by SUPERB project partner Forest State Service of North Rhine-Westphalia (Landesbetrieb Wald und Holz NRW). In the area the beetle-infected spruce forests are being reforested into more diverse, mixed-forest ecosystems by using a combination of natural regeneration and replanting native tree species.

During the second day participants came together in small groups to exchange perspectives and define measures and strategies for upscaling forest restoration. The themes given to the groups were: Implementing future-proof restoration practices. working within the framework of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation and mobilising social and political support. Results from the workshop is expected during July.

The project Superb have launched “Seed4Forest”, an online, decision-making tool that helps users find suitable and productive tree species for any location in Europe. Another online service called Forest Knowledge Gateway is being published during the autumn 2025. The Forest Knowledge Gateway is a platform providing evidence-based guidance, tools, manuals, and guidelines for forest restoration.

 

You an read more about SUPERB here:

https://forest-restoration.eu/about/

https://forest-restoration.eu/learning-from-the-land-and-learning-from-each-other/

https://app.seed4forest.org/