LIFE PRIMED will produce a good-practice manual to support the mainstreaming of the Project's innovative solutions elsewhere (Action E.3). It will be prepared to underline the importance of the interdisciplinary value and ecosystem-based approach when dealing with restoration ecology and long-term conservation of EU green infrastructure and natural capital. More specifically, the manual will provide guidance on how restoration and conservation interventions focusing on priority habitats and species have to
- assess and quantify triggering abiotic and biotic factors of ecosystem decline before starting implementing direct conservation actions;
- size and calibrate direct conservation actions according to tailor-made and need-oriented geo-morphological, climatic, environmental, and physiological parameters (which in the case of LIFE PRIMED have been developed in the framework of Action A.2, A.3, A.4, A.5., A6, C.5, respectively); and
- verify the effectiveness of restoration and conservation actions through monitoring the medium-term effects on target habitats and species of these interventions and provide a technical-scientific guide for enabling long-term monitoring framework of such actions (After-life actions).
Emphasis will be given to the innovative nature-based solutions developed, applied and tested by the Project. They will include
- the hydraulic irrigation works implemented to provide a supplementary water source to declined woodlands to mitigate climate change's effects (e.g. increasing aridity, extreme weather events, etc.);
- the molecular-based approach developed to quickly identify fungal pathogens in organic samples of trees (e.g. oak acorns or seedlings) that are devastating protected and non-protected forests in the whole Mediterranean region;
- the indications on how establishing controlled-origin and free-pathogen forestry nurseries to enable pro-active, effective and climate-adaptive afforestation practices.
Ex-situ propagation and in-situ reinforcement of herbaceous plants are also an asset of ecosystem-based restoration actions worthy of attention in the manual. These activities permit strengthening the populations of keystone species of small, transient and highly localised priority habitats such as Mediterranean temporary ponds (habitat 3170*), which conservation managers and forestry practitioners often neglect.
According to Action E.3, the good-practice manual will represent the completion of the restoration ecology process's technical side. The deliverables produced by the Project will be used as a technical-scientific baseline to facilitate synthesising the main findings of the Project Actions. However, as the manual will consist of an interdisciplinary connection of technical-scientific means, it will be more than a simplistic summarising of Project efforts.
The good-practice manual will be functional to replicate the restoration, long-term conservation and valorisation approach of threatened EU habitats and species developed by the Project that LIFE PRIMED is eager to replicate elsewhere.