Bringing Europe's freshwaters back to life: The MERLIN H2020 project

Part of EU Open Research Repository
Published February 2, 2025 | Version v1
Publication Open

Diversifying Funding for Freshwater Restoration using Nature-Based Solutions: Lessons from the MERLIN project

Authors/Creators

  • 1. EDMO icon Ecologic Institute
  • 2. The James Hutton Institute
  • 3. EDMO icon Deltares
  • 4. ROR icon Wageningen University & Research
  • 5. Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde
  • 6. Connectology
  • 7. ROR icon University of Duisburg-Essen

Description

1. Diversifying sources of funding and financing is necessary to scale up freshwater ecosystem restoration and meet current EU policy targets.

2. While restoration teams recognise the need to diversify, they reveal a marked cautiousness in exploring private sources of funding and finance.

3. Barriers relate to specialised language and terminology, perceptions of reputational risk, and difficulty to articulate viable business plans for opportunities unlocked by ecosystem restoration.

4. Committed restoration teams put significant efforts in building new skills and capacity in socioeconomics, business, and finance to communicate and engage effectively with the private sector.

5. Support programmes, pilot initiatives, and guidance are needed to successfully accompany restoration teams in their diversification journey.

6. More effective enforcement of existing policies and regulations is needed to narrow the funding gap, while new ones must foster responsible private spending, lending and investment in restoration. 

Files

MERLIN_D3.5_Financing.pdf

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Additional details

Funding

European Commission
MERLIN - Mainstreaming Ecological Restoration of freshwater-related ecosystems in a Landscape context: INnovation, upscaling and transformation 101036337