The SERE 2024 Conference took place last 26-30 August at the Estonian National Museum in Tartu (Estonia). The meeting of the Society for Ecological Restoration – Europe saw the participation of more than 670 persons from 47 countries. The program was divided in 36 sessions, covering the topic of the ecological restoration from terrestrial to marine ecosystems passing through transitional habitats. The conference hosted 8 keynote talks, 390 oral presentations, two poster sessions and 10 workshops. The meeting program included also several field trips to show examples of restoration interventions carried out around the Tartu landscape. Members of the REDRESS consortium contributed to the session “The ecological restoration in marine ecosystems: lessons learnt, challenges and opportunities” that consisted of 25 talks spreading from coastal to deep-sea habitats. Cristina Gambi (UNIVPM) opens the session with the contribution “Marine Ecosystem Restoration: New Challenges From Coastal To Deep-Sea Habitats”. She provided an overview of the challenges of ecosystem restoration moving from coastal areas of the CLIMAREST (Coastal Climate Resilience and Marine Restoration Tools for the Arctic Atlantic basin) project to the deep sea providing also a general presentation of the REDRESS (Restoration of Deep-Sea Habitats to Rebuild European Seas) project. Nadia Papadopoulou (HCMR) presented a contribution “From Merces To Redress: Socio-Economic Data And Natural Capital Accounting For Deep-Sea Ecosystem Restoration” with special focus on the REDRESS WP4 “Enabling deep-sea ecosystem restoration: socio-economic costs, benefits and financing for innovative blueprint solutions” to accelerate investment in marine restoration. Marco Taviani (CNR-ISMAR) completed the morning session presenting the talk on “Valuable Deep-Sea Coral Habitats Around Italian Coasts in The Blue Economy: Actions and Perspectives” showing an overview of the activities carried out along the Italian Seas.
During the poster session, UNIVPM and the whole consortium presented the REDRESS project summary and Chris Smith (HCMR) provided a contribution on “From MERCES to REDRESS: do we need different governance arrangements for deep-sea ecosystem restoration?” with special attention to the tasks referring to the REDRESS WP5 “Governance structure and processes to support deep-sea restoration interventions”.
