Overview
Join us for the Atlantic & Arctic Lighthouse Weekly Hour on May 8, 2024, from 2 to 3 PM CET, featuring the Restore4Life project. Restore4Life is part of the Danube & Black Sea Lighthouse within the EU Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030”. It showcases the remarkable socio-economic benefits derived from a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to restoring freshwater and coastal wetlands in the Danube basin. By creating new blue-green infrastructure that bolsters regional climate change resilience and mitigation efforts, Restore4Life paves the way for a sustainable future.
With four demonstration sites and six monitoring sites spread throughout the Danube basin, Restore4Life aims to demonstrate the substantial enhancement of crucial ecosystem services. These services include water and pollutant retention, carbon sequestration, tourism opportunities, and the overall resilience of water-dependent habitats.
The project further reveals the multitude of socio-economic synergies that arise from these improvements, opening doors for sustainable businesses and investments. The project’s core activities center around reinstating lateral connectivity in riverine corridors, crucial for restoring the ecological balance.
To support this mission, Restore4Life introduces the long-term wetland restoration service called Restore4Life Wetland Reconstruction Accelerator.
Programme
14:00 – 14:10
Introduction: Restore4life project overview – Project Coordinator – Mihai Adamescu
14:10 – 14h15
Open Call – Restore4life – Oriane Georges
14:15 – 14:30
Restoration Solutions – Martin Pusch
14:30 – 14:45
Business options from nature-based solutions for wetlands – Paul Goriup
14:45 – 15:00
Integrating effectively citizen science in wetland conservation – Tim Grandjean
Speakers
SPEAKER
Mihai Adamescu
Restore4life – Project Coordinator
CS Mihai Cristian Adamescu has BS and PhD in Biology/Ecology/Sustainable development . He is head of Research Centre in Systems Ecology and Sustainability, University of Bucharest. The main areas of research approached included: ecology of large rivers, employing systems ecology principles to foster sustainability, sensor networks and high-frequency monitoring for complex systems, management plans and exploring biodiversity conservation strategies. Dr. Adamescu leads the Romanian team’s efforts in three Horizon 2020 projects: eLTER (Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem & Socio-Ecological Research Infrastructure), ESMERALDA (Enhancing Ecosystem Services Mapping for Policy and Decision Making), and Advanced eLTER. He is also coordinating a new project Horizon where he is the project coordinator for the entire consortium of 31 partners entitle RESTORE4LIFE. Also, he was involved in the development of ten management plans for Natura 2000 sites and the Natural Park Small Island of Brăila through a LIFE-Natura initiative. The budgets of the projects coordinated exceeded 11.5 million Euros. The scientific contribution, based on the results of whole research activity, is illustrated on over 40 published works (H-index 12 in WoS, 16 in Scopus, and H-index 22 in Google Scholar) and contributions to six books.
SPEAKER
Oriane Georges
F6S
Oriane Georges is a Project Manager, Marine Scientist and Bio-industries Engineer dedicated to environmental preservation. She has been working for the past few years on R&D&I EU projects related to marine, environmental, and ecosystems restoration as a Project Manager, Communication Manager and Work Package leader. Within her current role in F6S she also learns to manage Open Call and focus particularly on Mission Ocean projects.
SPEAKER
Martin Pusch
The Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB)
Prof. Dr. Martin Pusch is a senior researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) in Berlin, who additionally lectures at two universities. He is an aquatic ecologist who is used to conduct interdisciplinary work with neighbouring disciplines. Dr. Pusch’s work focuses on the ecology and management of rivers and lake shores. Thereby he has applied a broad range of approaches in structural and functional ecology, as analysing the distribution patterns and the use of food resources by benthic invertebrates, measuring the effects of hydraulics on benthic invertebrates in rivers and at lake shores, and quantifying benthic-pelagic coupling, the metabolism of organic matter as well as the retention of nutrients in rivers (in the FP5 EU project STREAMES). Related with the management of surface waters, Dr. Pusch has worked on ecologically-based minimum flows, river training and restoration, and on human impacts on the hydromorphology of lake shores. As part of the FP7 EU project WISER, he has established a targeted assessment tool for the hydromorphological integrity of lake shores (AESHNA) for official use under the EU Water Framework Directive. Recently, he has started a large German collaborative project ‘River Ecosystem Services Index’ (RESI) focusing on ecosystem services of rivers and floodplains.
SPEAKER
Paul Goriup
National Centre for Sustainable Development
Paul Goriup holds a joint honours degree (BSc) in Botany and Zoology and an MSc in Conservation Science. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (FCIEEM) and a member of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas. Paul has been involved in nature conservation work since 1977, starting as a Higher Scientific Officer in the UK government, followed by work in Africa and Asia for Worldwide Fund for Nature, and then Director of Conservation at BirdLife International. In 1986, Paul founded and remains a director of NatureBureau ltd, a company that provides technical support for ecological management projects in UK and abroad, as well as publishing a wide range of wildlife-related books. In 1993, Paul started to work for international donors on environmental issues in the Black Sea basin, which in 1996 led him to establish FIELDFARE International Ecological Development ltd, one of Britain’s first pro-nature companies. This company has raised private-sector capital for small-scale investments in Ukraine such as biomass energy production and ecotourism.
SPEAKER
Tim Grandjean
Archipelagos – Institute of Marine Conservation
Tim Grandjean is an environmental scientists focused on protecting and restoring wetland and coastal ecosystems. To target efficient protection and meaningful environmental change, the focus of Tim is on community-driven initiatives and to integrate citizen science into conservation, enhancing both public involvement and data collection efficacy.
Resources
May 8th, 2024, Atlantic & Arctic Lighthouse Weekly Hour S02E10 with Restore4Life
Relevant links
Restore4Life showcases the remarkable socio-economic benefits derived from a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to restoring freshwater and coastal wetlands in the Danube basin. By creating new blue-green infrastructure that bolsters regional climate change resilience and mitigation efforts, Restore4Life paves the way for a sustainable future.
With a 2030 target, the EU Mission "Restore our Ocean and Waters" aims to protect and restore the health of our ocean and waters through research and innovation, citizen engagement and blue investments.