Regulation 2024/1991 - Nature restoration - Main contents

Official Journal

of the European Union

EN

L series

2024/1991

29.7.2024

It is necessary to lay down rules at Union level on the restoration of ecosystems to ensure the recovery of biodiverse and resilient nature across the Union territory. Restoring ecosystems also contributes to the Union’s climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation objectives.

The communication of the Commission of 11 December 2019 entitled ‘The European Green Deal’ (the ‘European Green Deal’) sets out an ambitious roadmap to transform the Union into a fair and prosperous society, with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy, aiming to protect, conserve and enhance the Union’s natural capital, and to protect the health and well-being of citizens from environment-related risks and impacts. As part of the European Green Deal, the communication of the Commission of 20 May 2020 entitled ‘EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2023 Bringing nature back into our lives’ sets out the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030.

The Union and its Member States are parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (4). As such, they are committed to the long-term strategic vision, adopted at the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to that Convention on 18-29 October 2010 by Decision X/2 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, that, by 2050, biodiversity is to be valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.

The Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted at the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity on 7-19 December 2022, sets out action-oriented global targets for urgent action over the decade to 2030. Target 1 is to ensure that all areas are under participatory, integrated and biodiversity inclusive spatial planning and/or effective management processes addressing land and sea use change; to bring the loss of areas of high biodiversity importance, including ecosystems of high ecological integrity, close to zero by 2030 while respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, as set out in the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Target 2 is to ensure that, by 2030, at least 30 % of areas of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and marine and coastal ecosystems are under effective restoration, in order to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, ecological integrity and connectivity. Target 11 is to restore, maintain and enhance nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services, such as the regulation of air, water and climate, soil health, pollination and reduction of disease risk, as well as protection from natural hazards and disasters, through nature-based solutions and/or ecosystem-based approaches for the benefit of all people and nature. The Global Biodiversity Framework will enable progress towards the achievement of the outcome-oriented goals for 2050.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals, in...