Frequently Asked Questions

Not sure whether your action is considered "restoration?" We recommend checking out the page What is ecological restoration? to read about definitions, types of actions, and much more!

The marine restoration toolbox is aimed at those in the growing marine restoration community, and more specifically, those with knowledge and/or experience working within restoration (in the marine or terrestrial realms) and/or conservation. Restoration is a complex field and past projects have led to damaged rather than healthy ecosystems. Therefore, use of the resources and tools provided in the marine restoration toolbox must be coupled with domain-specific knowledge and expertise.

In the Stakeholders engagement page you will find a number of useful resources for inspiration on engaging with stakeholders following best practices. We also encourage you to consult our Ocean literacy resources for resources on engaging with the general public.

This is a complicated question that requires collecting local data, tailored to your situation. One method for optimizing site selection once relevant criteria have been identified and data has been collected is using site suitability maps where layers depicting constraints and opportunities are layered for optimizing area selection. We provide a demonstration of this technique in a web application that can be accessed in the Marine Restoration virtual lab. 

Unfortunately, this is a common situation and contributes to the difficulty surrounding measuring success. While the best solution is to secure future funding for high-quality monitoring of projects, low cost methods may be used-although oftentimes these methods rely on much less precise data (i.e., collected by citizen scientists, remote sensing data). In the Marine Restoration Virtual Lab, you will find a demonstration of a low-cost method for measuring area extent of re-introduced species. You will also be able to find citizen science networks in the WaveLinks database. The data collected using the low cost methods demonstrated in the toolbox should be supplemented by other data and expert inputs.

Determining the success of a restoration project is non-trivial and requires defining measurable goals that will substantially impact the healthy and functionality of an ecosystem and long-term monitoring to measure whether goals are met. Furthermore, long term monitoring is costly and it may be difficult to collect comparable data over time.

Restoration is not always the appropriate solution to pursue for an area-depending on the ecological context, the amount of impact a project can make, and on the source and strength of pressures effecting an area. The Nature Restoration Law opens up a number of opportunities to initiate successful restoration projects-and projects whose impacts are overstated (i.e., "greenwashing"). Before entering the project development phase, it is important to engage experts from the restoration community and local stakeholders to assess whether the goals of the project are feasible, and whether the project goals will substantially contribute to renewing nature.

For more information on the EU Nature Restoration Law, read the European Commission's page and its publication on the topic with additional resources!