Restoration of benthic habitats in coastal marine environments

The present document is set within a challenging context regarding the restoration of natural habitats in the face of a continuing and worrying deterioration in their state of health and the ecosystem services they provide. This context is also politically challenging, coming at a time when a European regulation has set highly ambitious targets after 30 years of insufficient application of the Nature Directives. This context of ecological urgency on the one hand, and political demands on the other, required, and will continue to require, a great deal of work to explain the concepts of ecological restoration and the sharing of experiences, given that these concepts are so open to interpretation and that examples are few and far between, poorly documented and, unfortunately, poorly evaluated. The first steps were therefore to compile a list of measures aimed at restoring benthic habitats and to share an evaluation method developed with PatriNat to objectify the projects presented as thoroughly as possible. After a brief reminder of the theoretical concepts relating to the theme and the European Nature Restoration Regulation, this document presents examples of feedback from work and projects to which LIFE IP MARHA has had access, as well as work in which the teams of the 14 beneficiaries associated with LIFE IP MARHA have been involved. This document is part of a triptych of deliverables on ecological restoration from the French Biodiversity Agency (OFB): •the PatriNat project, which aims to analyse and indicate the definitions adopted for restoration, as well as certain principles that structure the concept of ecosystem restoration within the framework of the European Nature Restoration Regulation, •this LIFE IP MARHA technical note aims to understand the contexts, methods, techniques, strengths and limitations of marine habitat restoration. Its aim is to inform the work and thinking of managers of marine protected areas (MPAs), including OFB departments, as well as decentralised government departments in the context of the appraisal of works and projects in marine areas and the public maritime domain. It should provide food for thought for the implementation of the European Nature Restoration Regulation •the work of the OFB's Department of Research and Scientific Support (DRAS), guiding the National Restoration Plan, notably through the LittoREX reference platform (page78), which compiles feedback from collaboration with the French Geological Survey (BRGM).