Policy Briefing #18: Agroforestry and the EU Nature Restoration Regulation (Nature Restoration Law)

Briefing #18 (v4) focuses on the Nature Restoration Regulation draft  Implementing Regulation and its Annex (“Uniform Format Nature Restoration Plans”). To overcome the lack of targets on agroforestry we recommend that Member States code agricultural trees as “woody landscape features” in their CAP Land Parcel Information System (LPIS) systems, and that reporting on these areas should be mandatory. We conclude: a) the NRR index for “high diversity landscape features” remains different from that used in CAP reporting and a single index is needed; b) mandatory indices of forest diversity should not include fields like standing or lying dead biomass, which may undermine the very objectives of the regulation by increasing wildfire risk in most parts of Europe; c)  ecological classifications and measures need to be cross-mapped against agricultural land uses and practices, and that this should be done on a parcel by parcel basis using the LPIS, including information on forest land and parcel boundaries.   An open-source “Rural Land Parcel Information System”, based on the existing agricultural LPIS,  but including forest parcels, is needed in all Member States.  It can then be used for CAP, NRR, SFI, LULUCF, CRCF and Corporate Sustainability reporting.

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