Nature Returns is a learning project, designed to explore and document how innovative business models can effectively support protected area management while addressing specific threats to biodiversity. The initiative operates across five pilot sites chosen for their biodiversity significance, community engagement potential, and the feasibility of implementing business models: the Lonjsko Polje Nature Park in Croatia, the Pico Island Nature Park in the Azores archipelago in Portugal, the Príncipe Nature Park in Sao Tome and Principe, the Shar Mountain National Park in North Macedonia and the Ulcinj Salina Nature Park in Montenegro. Each site represents unique ecosystems, challenges, and socio-economic contexts, providing a diverse foundation for testing and refining the approach.

Being Nature Returns primarily a learning project, a monitoring plan is needed to guide the systematic collection and analysis of data to evaluate the project’s outcomes, test key assumptions, and refine methodologies. We have just published the Monitoring Manual that will allow us to measure impact of Nature Returns’ approach and to assess how valid and useful this approach can be for the management of protected areas.

Specifically, the monitoring plan sets the frame for the project team to:

• Track progress: Monitor implementation of activities on all levels (site and overarching), to allow for assessing efficiency and generate learning
• Assess natural values: Track changes in biodiversity and ecosystem health to understand the impact of business interventions.
• Evaluate threat reduction: Measure how business activities mitigate key pressures, such as habitat degradation, invasive species, and unsustainable resource use.
• Analyse business contributions: Examine the social and economic benefits generated, including enhanced livelihoods, community engagement, and local support for conservation.
• Enable adaptive management: Enable informed adaptive management at the site and project levels that seek continuous improvement of the methodology.
• Foster learning: Enable testing assumptions, cross-site learning, and iterative improvements to the approach based on real-world evidence.

The monitoring framework operates on two levels: pilot site and project-wide. At the pilot site level, monitoring focuses on tracking site-specific natural values, pressures, and the outcomes of business interventions, ensuring alignment with local theories of change. At the project-wide level, aggregated data from all sites provides a comprehensive view of overall progress, enabling cross-site comparisons, identifying patterns, and generating insights to refine the approach. This dual-level monitoring ensures localized relevance and the scalability of findings for broader application and support the Adaptive Management process.