Parliament voted 329 to 275. That was the margin by which the EU’s Nature Restoration Law cleared the chamber on 27 February 2024, after months in which it looked far from certain to survive.
Guy Pe’er, an ecologist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), described the vote as lucky. Policymakers had been “rapidly reducing environmental ambition” in the wake of farmer protests across Europe, he wrote, pointing to exemptions on set-aside land for a third year running and the rejection of the Sustainable Use Regulation. An unusual appeal for amendments to the law followed. It failed.
What the numbers say
The law answers findings from scientists and the European Environment Agency that around 80 percent of the EU’s habitats are in poor ecological condition. The European Commission puts the figure at more than 80%. Species are following the habitats down. Some 38 percent of fish populations are in poor condition, one in ten bee and butterfly species faces extinction, and farmland bird species have fallen by 36 percent since 1990.
None of the remedies are new. Pe’er lists them: restoring rivers to a natural state, cutting pesticide use to protect pollinators, bringing fallow land back, adding green space in cities, rewetting moors and letting forests recover. Individual countries and communities have already tried several with success. What was missing, in his words, was a common approach and full commitment from every member state.
Targets and monitoring
The law supplies both. By 2030, restoration measures must be in place across 20 percent of the damaged regions. By 2050 the figure rises to 90 percent of affected ecosystems. How each country gets there is largely its own business, since member states keep considerable flexibility over implementation.
Monitoring is a first. Designated areas will be checked regularly, and meadow butterflies are one example Pe’er gives. They react quickly to change and serve as an early warning system, so a decline in their numbers would let local authorities respond in good time.
The farm question
Agriculture supplied most of the opposition. The fear was that the law would tie farmers’ hands, and Pe’er concedes the worry has some basis: intensive farming is one of the main causes of biodiversity loss in Europe, and farmers whose forebears drained peatland for fields may now be asked to undo the work. Those peatlands matter for biodiversity, climate protection, water regulation and flood prevention, he says, which is why the law envisages restoring them step by step.
Compensation is the sticking point. Smaller farms in particular can meet many environmental requirements only with financial support, he argues, and money from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy could pay for it. He would direct that support to small farms and to farmers moving towards sustainable methods, and away from subsidies that favour large corporations and big landowners. Dropping climate-damaging subsidies could free up more.
Two loose ends remain. Funding mechanisms are still for member states to settle. And governments may halt the law for one year on agricultural land under “exceptional circumstances”, a clause Pe’er expects to be invoked given the droughts, heat waves, floods and pest infestations of recent years.
The Council of the EU still had to approve the text. Its decision was scheduled for 12 April.
