Iconic places on a path to recovery

This photo series tells a different side to the story: one of hope and action.

Photographers across Europe capture some of the continent’s most-cherished nature sites, and how local communities, conservationists, scientists, and businesses are working at the heart of efforts to bring them back to health. Their work spans glorious habitats across different parts of Europe – from Austria’s floodplain forests grazed by horses, to freshwater stewardship in Ireland’s Lough Guitane, to children rebuilding lost relationships with vultures in Bulgarian borderlands, to fishers, divers, and scientists working with other community members to restore habitats for seahorses on the Portuguese coastline.

And it talks too, about how people work together, sometimes in unexpected ways, to give nature the space to rebloom: NGOs working with private landowners to rehabilitate wetlands; schoolchildren working with conservationists to protect rare birds; fishers supporting marine conservation research.

Together, they show that nature recovery is driven by collaboration and the people working every day to help nature thrive again.

The series shows restoration in action, and how ecological recovery and human well-being are deeply connected. These stories come at a pivotal moment. Following the adoption of the hard-won EU Nature Restoration Law in 2024, countries across the EU are now preparing National Nature Restoration Plans that will guide how ecosystems are restored in the years ahead.

Many of the projects featured here began years before the new law was adopted. They now offer valuable lessons for putting it into practice. They show what can become possible when people have the support and resources to work for and together with nature. Draft National Restoration Plans are due by 1 September 2026 – with final drafts due by 2027. This will set the direction for bloc-wide nature restoration for the benefit of nature and people.

Nature restoration requires commitment, time, knowledge, cooperation, resources, trust, imagination and a willingness to work across differences. The people in these photographs are bringing all these elements together and their stories offer us more than hope. They show that joining forces to give nature the space to rebound brings its rewards in health, resilience, livelihoods, and safety.