Denver (USA) has been the capital of the ecological restoration 2025. The conference of SER2025 took place from 30 September to 4 October 2025. This world conference brings together 1,400 delegates from 70 countries to support the delivery of global commitments to restore lands and seas for the benefit of people and nature. The program is rich in sessions and symposia (48) with focus of the different aspects of the ecological restoration from the field work and examples of success to all actions and initiatives carried out with the support of society and stakeholders to maintain long-term restoration interventions. The symposium on “New Frontiers in Marine Ecosystems” organized by UNIVPM on behalf of the REDRESS and CLIMAREST projects presented some relevant findings of the costal and deep-sea ecosystems restoration along the European Seas. Roberto Danovaro (UNIVPM) opened the session with a talk on “Needs, opportunities and challenges of restoring marine ecosystems”, followed by Simonetta Fraschetti (UNINA) with a presentation on “Marine restoration from a marine spatial planning perspective”. Cristina Gambi (UNIVPM) presented an update on “Best practices for marine ecosystem restoration” while Anthony Grehan (UNIGALWAY) spoken on “Restoring the European Atlantic cold-water coral reef belt”. Stephen Hynes (UNIGALWAY) presented a talk on “Alternative approaches to deep-sea ecosystem valuation for restoring prioritization” followed by a contribution on “Governing ecological restoration in the deep-sea”. During the symposium was also presented the “Toolbox for scaling of marine ecosystem restoration” conceived and made available by SINTEF in the framework of the CLIMAREST project. Moderator of the session Sahar Stevenson-Jones from SERE.
During this week with a focus on landscape restoration, Sahar Stevenson-Jones (SERE) hosted a symposium on “Leveraging the SER -Europe Marine Restoration Working Group to drive global marine restoration efforts”. The symposium was opened by Roberto Danovaro (UNIVPM, and Chair of the MRWG in Europe), followed by Ron Connolly (Griffith University, Australia) and Angus Garbutt (UKCEH). A fruitful discussion followed involving experts of marine habitats (seagrass, mangrove, kelp forest and saltmarsh) at global scale on the needs, challenges and opportunities of a global network for marine restoration. See the photo gallery!