The Nature restoration law has passed. What it means, in brief

And also: setting a minimum of 10% tree cover in every city; re-wetting drained peatlands; increasing biodiversity on farmland; restoring habitats on the sea floor; removing river barriers to free 25,000 kilometres of rivers – the latter measure being considered necessary to prevent flood disasters.

To achieve these objectives, each member state will have to draw up a national restoration plan and provide precise reporting on what has been done. According to the promoters of the law, the investment in restoring the environment, certainly substantial, will bring between eight and 38 euros in benefits for every euro spent.

But the law has not passed as it was originally conceived

We mentioned the amendments that passed at the vote, and which changed some important aspects of the law.

As the WWF explains, ‘The European Parliament adopted the amendment based on the Council’s general approach (approved on 20 June with Italy, Austria, Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden voting against, and characterised by greater gradualness and flexibility, editor’s note), which has already significantly weakened the level of ambition of the proposed law, in particular as regards the restoration targets for the marine environment, peatlands and forests, and which deleted the article on access to justice’.

But the most significant aspect, which is not adequately highlighted in the current controversy, concerns the most detested provision, which has in effect been scrapped: namely ‘the article that would have restored nature on agricultural land, including peatlands, giving up an essential element for increasing Europe’s capacity to sequester carbon, and ignoring that in Europe today it is precisely intensive agriculture – which depends on synthetic chemicals and simplifies agro-ecosystems – that is the leading cause of biodiversity loss’.