Restoring pollinator habitats across European agricultural landscapes
based on multi-actor participatory approaches
Ambition of our pan-European project RestPoll
Substantially and permanently restore more wild pollinator habitats and enhance the connectivity of habitats in Europe, by strengthening society-wide capability to reverse wild pollinator decline and stabilise pollination services and their societal benefits
Permanently restore pollinator habitats
Agricultural land use, covering by far the largest proportion of terrestrial land modified by human activities, is crucial for feeding humanity, and the decisions on how farmers manage their land are a major driver for biodiversity change.
In order to counteract pollinator decline and thus also the pollination services, our pan-European project RestPoll aims to permanently restore pollinator habitats in Europe and enhance their connectivity.
This is important not only for agricultural yields and food security, but also for wild plants and other organisms that directly or indirectly depend on pollinators.
Partners
24 research institutions, two ministries, three partners from industry, one NGO and one national park from a total of 16 countries are directly involved in the project.
Living Lab Network
For conceptualizing an approach to revert the trend on agricultural pollinators in the EU, we created a network of case study areas, comprising Living Labs that implement co-designed restoration measures for pollinators. The case study areas include all major farming types, are located across various geographic zones and thus also cover wide ranges of species distributions within Europe.
Latest publications
- EU Omnibus proposal increases pesticide risks. - Wintermantel, D. et al. (2026)
- Towards pollinator stewardship in all policies: Policy incoherence in the EU is a major barrier to pollinator restoration. - van der Sluijs et al., J. (2026)
- Restoring pollinators in Europe: Evidence-based actions for Nature Restoration Plans. -Knapp, J. et al. (2026)
- RestPoll: Restoring Pollinator habitats across European agricultural landscapes based on multi-actor participatory approaches. - Klein, A.M. et al. (2025)
- Pesticides and habitat loss additively reduce wild bees in crop fields. - Knauer, A. et al. (2026)





