NAM working as part of RESTORE project

Nature After Minerals to work within new restoration partnership project in north-west Europe

SUPPORT for the Nature After Minerals (NAM) programme in recent years has helped the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) – one half of the programme partners,  alongside Natural England – to successfully bid for funding from the European Union’s Interreg IVB North West Europe Programme.

With immediate effect and until June 2015, NAM (through the RSPB) will be one of seven partner organizations working across north-west Europe as part of a new project called RESTORE. The aim of the project will be to engage in collaborative partnership working across a variety of stakeholder sectors around the minerals industry in order to develop a framework for promoting the appropriate restoration of mineral sites to provide benefits for biodiversity, habitats and local people through cross-sector working and integration.

The RESTORE project will operate with the RSPB (incorporating much of the NAM activity) working as the lead partner across the UK and liaising closely and co-operating with: Surrey County Council; VLM – the Flemish Land Agency; Limburg Province – regional government in the Netherlands; ILS – an economics institute based in Dortmund; ENCI Development Foundation – associated with the HeidelbergCement group in the Netherlands; and IKL – a landscape conservation trust in Limburg, Netherlands.

The partnership will focus on four main areas of work: Minerals policy – developing a best-practice guide for north-west Europe; Restoration – the piloting and demonstration of innovative methods; Online interactive mapping – highlighting biodiversity resources to inform future minerals planning; and Ecosystem Services – assessing both the ‘services’ which result from different restoration options and their value to communities within the north-west Europe region.

In addition to the existing NAM team members, three new posts have been filled to cover key areas of the RESTORE project: a project co-ordinator based at the RSPB’s UK headquarters; an ecosystem services scientist based in the Midlands; and a restoration adviser based in Northern Ireland. 

Also, plans are in place for the development of a dedicated website for the new project to keep all stakeholders and interested parties informed of the project’s aims and progress. It will offer advice and information on priority habitat creation, provide instances of case study best practice and develop an interactive mapping tool of mineral site potential to deliver for biodiversity and people throughout north-west Europe.

Carolyn Jewell, programme manager with Nature After Minerals, said: ‘Recognition of the minerals industry’s unique position to deliver for nature on a potentially landscape scale has gathered apace these last few years. Support for the NAM programme, from all stakeholders in the UK, to help turn aspiration into reality and keep the momentum moving forward, has meant that we can now share this model for successful partnership working with colleagues on the continent.

‘We are truly thrilled to be able to work with new partners, to tap into the huge potential of mineral sites, to link up and create priority habitats and to support all nature in the north-west region of Europe, as well as providing beneficial outcomes for local communities. We are particularly pleased to be working alongside colleagues at Surrey County Council in the UK, a long-time supporter and champion of NAM, as we look forward to embracing new challenges and developments over the course of the next two to three years.’

NAM says it intends to provide updates on the new project’s developments, as they occur, over the coming months, as will the RSPB.