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.
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Restoring Europe's landscapes through the Green Deal and Nature Restoration Law
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.
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Why community matters to freshwater restoration
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.
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Stories from the water’s edge: getting freshwater restoration done in Europe
This is a podcast telling stories about how restoration gets done across Europe. First we hear from Joshua Royte, a conservation scientist working for the Nature Conservancy in the USA. Josh has led ambitious river restoration projects across Maine, and is now an advisor to the EU MERLIN project. We hear Josh’s perspective on freshwater restoration in Europe, and the work the MERLIN project is doing to help bring its rivers, streams and wetlands back to life.This work is explored in five fascinating stories from sites across Europe, each of which highlights the complexities of getting freshwater restoration done. Arturo Elosegi from the University of the Basque Country narrates a long-running – and now successful – story about working with communities to address local opposition to dam removal on the Deba River. Charlotte Neary from the Forth Rivers Trust in Scotland highlights the importance of finding and training local contractors to help make restoration a reality along the Forth Catchment, even when it requires unusual traditional methods such as water dowsing.Nadine Gerner from Emschergenossenschaft tells the story of wildflower meadows blooming along the banks of the Emscher River in Germany, which was once so neglected that it became an open sewer. Nadine highlights the need for convincing stories about the success of such nature-based solutions in upscaling their use in restoration. Matea Jarak from WWF Adria recounts an eye-opening story from the Hutovo Blato peatlands in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where a major release of water from a nearby hydropower plant flooded the restoration site. Matea highlights the importance of clear communication with people and organisations around a restoration area to avoid such catastrophic issues.Finally, Iulia Puiu from WWF Romania shares the story of how she and her colleagues have been working to restore the floodplains of the Danube River, in order to buffer the effects of floods and droughts exacerbated by the ongoing climate emergency. A key challenge for Iulia and her team is communicating the need to return natural processes to floodplains which have been drained and developed for many years.Together, the stories give a 'behind the scenes' snapshot of freshwater restoration projects taking place across Europe. They highlight that restoration is never a simple, straightforward process: Instead one that often requires communication, persistence and improvisation in equal measures.
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Learning from the river: restoring the Danube
Join us on the banks of the Danube River in Austria to hear how ambitious restoration projects are helping free the river from human alterations. We meet Robert Tögel and Alice Kaufmann from viadonau and Silke Drexler from BOKU beside the river to hear about how restoring its banks and side-arms is helping benefit both people and nature. As the trio explain, this work is a process of 'learning from the river' to help create space for natural processes to return, whilst at the same time making sure that navigation routes along the river are not impeded.Back in Vienna, we hear from Helmut Habersack in the recently-opened BOKU River Lab to find out how centuries of alterations of the river interact with emerging pressures from the climate emergency and plastic pollution. We speak to Piret Nõukas from the Research Executive Agency at the European Commission to get a wider picture of how freshwater restoration work in MERLIN fits in with wider EU environmental policies like the Green Deal. And finally, we hear from Eva Hernández, co-ordinator of the WWF's Living European Rivers initiative to discuss the pressing need to restore rivers across the continent, and how the proposed EU Nature Restoration Law – if passed – could help achieve this goal.
About MERLIN Podcast: Bringing Europe’s freshwaters back to life
Europe’s freshwaters are in an alarming state. Water pollution, habitat destruction and the ongoing effects of climate change have caused significant biodiversity loss and ecological decline across the continent. There is a pressing need for major freshwater restoration projects which tackle these declines and bring rivers, streams, peatlands and wetlands back to life.
MERLIN is a major European Union funded project which is investing millions of Euros to help mainstream freshwater restoration across the continent over the coming years. This podcast follows the MERLIN project in this journey. It offers a behind the scenes look at some of the continent’s most ambitious freshwater restoration projects carried out through cutting-edge aquatic science and conservation.
Listen to MERLIN Podcast: Bringing Europe’s freshwaters back to life, The Infinite Monkey Cage and many other podcasts from around the world with the radio.net app
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