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Commission Internationale pour la Protéction des Alpes

CIPRA International

A diverse and versatile organisation Top-down protection of the Alps, at national government level? Or bottom-up, together with the municipalities and the population? CIPRA is convinced that both are important. On the one hand CIPRA has initiated and continues to shape and monitor an international treaty like the Alpine Convention, on the other it supports local authority networks and stimulates the participation of civil society – a tried and tested two-pronged strategy for the protection of the Alps. We work top-down through our involvement in technical and political committees where we contribute our expertise and perspectives. These are based on the priorities of the Alpine Convention. Controversial issues together with ideas for their resolution are presented to the political decision makers, including environment ministers, of the Alpine countries. We also engage in public advocacy on these topics. We work bottom-up by supporting towns, villages and civil soci (...)

Lobbying Activity

Response to Uniform format for national restoration plans

7 Feb 2025

CIPRA, the international Commission for the Protection of the Alps, applauds the new Nature Restoration Regulation and welcomes the opportunity to comment on the draft uniform format. Our feedback is organized into two parts: first some general comments (here) and then options for reflecting the general comments into the uniform format (in the attached file). GENERAL COMMENTS The draft uniform format could: a) On public consultation: Draw attention to the importance of significant and appropriate public consultation, by asking not only to describe what procedures were put in place, but also to assess how meaningful participation was, and to transparently report of any complaints from citizens or civil society regarding the consultation process, and whether and how these complaints were addressed. Consultation, especially of local communities, may lead to their engagement in restoration activities, thus opening the opportunity to payments schemes for ecosystem services. b) On transboundary cooperation: Contain more reference to cooperation, and work on crossboundary landscapes, species and other priorities at macroregional scale. Such reference could be framed as questions in the format, to guide developers of NRPs on information to consider and analyses to perform. It is key to push them to think beyond national borders for the part of their territory that belongs to shared macroregions, shared biogeographic regions, shared landscapes and roaming and migratory species. In particular, for shared macroregions, it would be important for NRPs to address all forms of each habitat type in the entire macroregion. Thus, for example, for forests address mountain forests and forests at lower elevation, for farmland address mountain farmland and farmland in the plains, etc. Also, considering that transboundary cooperation is so important to warrant a mention in the uniform format, and that it would entail time and other resources to implement it, it may be crucial to foresee forms of incentives for the MSs who indeed choose to cooperate with neighbouring countries. c) On capitalization of existing information: Invite MSs to consider for the NRPs existing information, maps, results of prioritizations, studies and restoration initiatives, even when they have been produced by others, including from outside the country. This is particularly important for MSs that share a macroregion with other countries. By including specific questions on the consideration of existing information even at the supra-national or macroregional scale, the uniform format will prompt NRP developers to search for existing information and not assume the need for all new studies. A wealth of information already exists, for example, for the Alpine region, which is relatively easy to consult. Specifically on this issue we encourage the EC to invite MSs to take part in existing and new ad hoc knowledge exchanges (e.g., regional Knowledge Hubs) to coordinate NRPs and to share best practices and lessons learned from successful and unsuccessful restoration efforts across the various habitat types and different regions. These exchanges during the preparation of the NRPs will ensure NRPs will address the proper priorities and measures from the outset. d) On monitoring and data aggregation: Ensure that the results of monitoring of MSs can be aggregated at macroregional scale (combining data from several countries sharing the same macroregion), to be able to measure the contribution to the European targets made by each macroregion. In addition, as data collection for the European indexes foreseen by the NRR currently does not cover the entire area of application of the NRR, to ensure uniform compilation of Part A, Section 5, it would be important for the EC to plan and support the geographic extension of the monitoring of such indexes.
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