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Cost-effective marine restoration in the Nordics
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The Nordic Council of Ministers' Working Group for Environment and Economy (NME) and HELCOM hosted a webinar on cost-effective marine restoration on 4 December 2024.
This event focused on strategies to restore marine ecosystems in the Nordic region, presenting insights from leading environmental organizations in this field.
With growing political focus on marine environments—particularly in light of the new EU regulation on nature restoration—understanding the socio-economic implications and costs of marine restoration measures has become essential.
Join leading experts, researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders to discuss the costs associated with various restoration efforts. These initiatives not only enhance biodiversity and provide natural coastal defenses but also contribute significantly to climate change mitigation. However, comparing costs across regions remains a key challenge.
Through case studies from across the Nordic region, we’ll explore cost estimates, discuss approaches to meeting the EU’s ambitious restoration goals, and examine methodologies for evaluating the economic implications of these efforts. This event aims to foster collaboration, identify knowledge gaps, and advance unified methods for assessing costs and socio-economic impacts of marine restoration across the region.
🗓 When: 4 December, 09:00-12:00 CET
📍 Where: Hybrid (presenters in-person, attendees online)
🌍 Aimed at researchers, policymakers, environmental economists, and marine restoration practitioners, and anyone else interested.
Join us for a pivotal conversation on developing sustainable, cost-effective approaches to protect and restore the invaluable Nordic marine environment.
Moderator
Miķelis Bendiks
Miķelis Bendiks is a change and co-creation facilitator and moderator, process management expert and business trainer. With a background in shared services, public administration and lean project management, he currently works in the field of business consulting and management.
Miķelis has successfully managed many innovation sprints, co-creation sessions for both private and governmental institutions. He values the approach of learning by doing, strategy planning and continuous improvement, correct definition of problems and growth in people and the organizations they work for.
Welcome
Rüdiger Strempel - HELCOM Secretariat
A lawyer by training, Rüdiger Strempel has been the Executive Secretary of the Baltic Marine Environment Commission (Helsinki Commission, HELCOM) since August 2019. He looks back on many years of experience in international environmental law, policy, and diplomacy, with a particular focus on international marine conservation.
He has previously held the posts of Executive Secretary of the UN Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North-East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas (UNEP/ASCOBANS) and of the Common Wadden Sea Secretariat (CWSS) and has also worked for a number of other United Nations agencies. Moreover, he has a background as a journalist and professional communicator working in English and German, and he is the author or co-author of numerous articles and several books.
Lotta Eklund - NME
Lotta is currently on partial leave from my role as senior inspector at the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment in South Ostrobothnia, with area of responsibility in water protection and the EU Water Framework Directive.
Six years ago, she took on the role as a coordinator for the Nordic Environment and Economy working group (NME) under the Nordic Council of Ministers for Environment and Climate.
This marked a shift from her background in water-related fields, which had defined her career since her studies at the University of Helsinki. She has worked on issues related to amphibian vision, fisheries, freshwater habitat restoration, and environmental bureaucracy, always with a focus on aquatic ecosystems.
Keynote speakers
Vedran Nikolic - DG Environment
Vedran is a policy coordinator in the Nature Conservation Unit of the European Commission’s Directorate General for the Environment. He is working on the implementation of European Union’s nature conservation legislation, Birds and Habitats Directives, and the largest coordinated network of protected areas in the world – the Natura 2000, in the marine environment.
He was also involved in the preparation and presently works on the implementation of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Nature Restoration Regulation, concerning targets related to the marine environment.
Vedran is a marine biologist from Croatia with a PhD degree in marine sciences.
Wenting Chen - NIVA
Dr Wenting Chen is a senior researcher from Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA).
She has long experience on socio-economics of marine ecosystem restoration including identifying cost effectiveness for upscaling restoration activities.
Presenters and panellists
Laura Wendling - SINTEF
Laura Wendling is a researcher within the Water and Environment group at SINTEF Community in Trondheim, Norway. She is also co-Editor in Chief of the
Elsevier journal Nature-Based Solutions.
Laura’s experience in multidisciplinary research and innovation projects spans government, academic and industry sectors, four continents and multiple climate zones.
Her work is focused on nature-based innovation aimed at conserving, protecting, restoring and sustainably using and managing ecosystems as a means to adapt and build resilience to the impacts of climate change.
Sanna Kuningas - LUKE
Sanna Kuningas is a marine biologist and is currently working at the Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE) as a senior scientist.
Her work focuses on key reproductive areas of fish in the coastal waters of Finland, habitat restorations, and invasive alien fish species.
Federica Montesanto - Aarhus University
Federica Montesanto is a postdoctoral researcher at Aarhus University's Department of Ecoscience and collaborates with the Danish Centre for Marine Restoration.
Her research centres on advancing marine restoration practices to enhance ecosystem health and biodiversity. Her goals include developing a standardized framework to measure and compare ecosystem services across restored habitats, improving restoration techniques for large-scale applications, and identifying effective monitoring methods.
Liisa Saikkonen - SYKE
Dr Liisa Saikkonen holds a doctoral degree in Environmental and Resource Economics and works as a Senior Research Scientist at the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE).
Her work focuses on understanding the economics of marine protection, including the costs and benefits of conservation efforts and marine ecosystem accounting. With experience across multiple projects, she contributes to advancing sustainable approaches to managing marine ecosystems.
