The 3rd RESTORE4Cs General Assembly was held in The Hague, Netherlands, on 4-6 December 2023 and was hosted by Wageningen University and Research.
The project partners convened both in-person and online, to deliberate on the project’s advancements, exchange ideas and plan out more actions for the upcoming months. The combined WP3, WP4, WP5, and WP6 session, which included all of the partners in an exercise with the primary goal of combining modelling, field data, and scaling up, was one of the meeting’s highlights on the first day.
Significant decisions to move the project forward were reached on the second day of the meeting. Specifically, WP3, WP6, and WP7 spoke about how to design the project toolbox, and WP8, in coordination with pertinent partners, established a timeline for filming the remaining Case Pilots and the next sampling campaigns for the video documentary series of RESTORE4Cs. Next, while WP1 began early brainstorming sessions for policy briefs, WP4 completed the preparation for the upcoming sampling campaign, which will take place in the winter, spring, and summer of 2024.
The visit to the stunning local Case Pilot site of RESTORE4Cs, the South-West Dutch Delta, in the company of an amazing guide, PhD Jim van Belzen of NIOZ, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, marked the end of the meeting in the Netherlands. One of the highlights of the 3rd RESTORE4Cs General Assembly in the Netherlands, despite the day’s cold temperatures, was undoubtedly the trip to Saeftinghe and the Hedwige-Prosper to learn more about tidal habitats and their restoration for biodiversity and ecosystem services.