Restoring our natural ecosystems is a task that is never really finished: science progresses; governments change; technology advances; society shifts; funding pots appear and disappear. And all the time, our rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands are a constant; their fate determined by the choices we make about them. In a time of rapid ecological loss and the ongoing climate emergency, it can be hard to think hopefully about the future of our ecosystems.

In this podcast we hear from four inspirational young scientists who are helping restore Europe’s freshwaters, and with it, hope for the future of our natural world. The four scientists all work on the EU MERLIN project, but each have their own research focus. They are Miriam Colls Lozano from the University of the Basque Country, Andrea Schneider from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Viviane Cavalcanti from DELTARES and Joselyn Verónica Arreaga Espin from BOKU.

We hear about the challenges of bringing disparate communities together through freshwater restoration, fostering exchange and collaboration between different communities, thinking creatively about funding restoration in the future, and strategies for bringing the public and policy makers on board with ambitious restoration programmes. The thread that runs through all these themes is the need for good communication in fostering positive change for the future.

In this podcast we take a behind the scenes look at environmental restoration in Europe on the cusp of what will likely prove to be a transformative year. First, we find out about the EU’s big environmental policy, the Green Deal, then about the ambitious new Nature Restoration Law adopted last year. We then hear from four EU restoration projects about the challenges of planning, financing and carrying out restoration on freshwaters, forests, wetlands and coastlines across the continent.

Podcast host Rob St John speaks to Colombe Warin from the European Commission, Shane McGuinness from WaterLANDS, Agustín Sánchez-Arcilla from REST-COAST, Elisabeth Schatzdorfer from SUPERB and Sebastian Birk from MERLIN to get the inside story on restoring Europe's landscapes.

Four key themes emerge around contemporary restoration in Europe: the use of nature-based solutions; the importance of bringing communities and stakeholders together; the challenges of financing ambitious restoration projects; and the need to upscale restoration activities from individual sites to entire landscapes and watersheds.

It's increasingly recognised that restoring damaged ecosystems is not only about improving habitats for wildlife, it is also vital to consider the needs of the people who live and work in a restoration landscape.

In this podcast we hear stories about how community has been placed at the heart of freshwater restoration projects. We hear from Tal Marciano Ratner about how the restoration of the Tzipori watershed in Israel offers a meeting place for people from different religions and ethnicities to come together in a time of great unrest and conflict.

Ruben Rocha from Dam Removal Europe talks about the challenges of communicating the benefits of dam removal to local communities, and describes how he is beginning to see the demand for removal projects coming from communities themselves. Roland Bischof and Julia von Gönner from iDiv in Germany tell us about the innovative citizen science work in the FLOW project, where the public can help scientists generate valuable data about the health of their streams.

Robert Arlinghaus from IGB and Humboldt University in Germany describes his long-standing work with angling communities, outlining how a productive form of aquatic stewardship can emerge from their interactions with nature. Finally, María Sánchez from ECOLISE outlines how community-led initiatives across Europe are helping give people a stronger voice in shaping environmental restoration.