Despite their ecological, economic and social importance, grasslands in areas with Mediterranean climates continue to receive limited scientific, political and media attention. The main objectives of this review are to compare and contrast dryland grasslands in the ‘Old World’ regions of the Mediterranean basin (southern Europe, western Asia and North Africa) with those of ‘New World’ regions with Mediterranean climates (Australia and Chile) and to identify common research priorities. The common characteristics and differences in climate, soils, native vegetation, importance of the livestock sector and the socio‐economic background for the different Mediterranean environments are examined. Past trends and the current status of temporary and permanent Mediterranean grasslands are also described. Some common issues between these regions are as follows: (i) adaptation to climate change; (ii) increasing persistence and drought survival of both annual and perennial species; (iii) the important role of forage legumes; (iv) maintaining grassland plant diversity; and (v) improved ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, control of soil erosion and wildfires, and preservation of both wild and domestic biodiversity. The favourable climate in these regions, which allows year‐round grazing and the growth of legumes, should be exploited to improve the sustainability of grassland‐based, extensive farming systems and the quality of their animal products, while at the same time improving ecosystem services. The decreasing support for grassland research and development programmes requires increased international scientific and technical cooperation among the few institutions operating in the different Mediterranean‐climate areas of the World to provide innovative and sustainable solutions to farmers.

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Restoration efforts in the Mediterranean Basin have been changing from a silvicultural to an ecological restoration approach. Yet, to what extent the projects are guided by ecological restoration principles remains largely unknown. To analyse this issue, we built an on-line survey addressed to restoration practitioners. We analysed 36 restoration projects, mostly from drylands (86%). The projects used mainly soil from local sources. The need to comply with legislation was more important as a restoration motive for European Union (EU) than for non-EU countries, while public opinion and health had a greater importance in the latter. Non-EU countries relied more on non-native plant species than EU countries, thus deviating from ecological restoration guidelines. Nursery-grown plants used were mostly of local or regional provenance, whilst seeds were mostly of national provenance. Unexpected restoration results (e.g. inadequate biodiversity) were reported for 50% of the projects and restoration success was never evaluated in 22%. Long term evaluation (>6years) was only performed in 31% of cases, and based primarily on plant diversity and cover. The use of non-native species and species of exogenous provenances may: i) entail the loss of local genetic and functional trait diversity, critical to cope with drought, particularly under the predicted climate change scenarios, and ii) lead to unexpected competition with native species and/or negatively impact local biotic interactions. Absent or inappropriate monitoring may prevent the understanding of restoration trajectories, precluding adaptive management strategies, often crucial to create functional ecosystems able to provide ecosystem services. The overview of ecological restoration projects in the Mediterranean Basin revealed high variability among practices and highlighted the need for improved scientific assistance and information exchange, greater use of native species of local provenance, and more long-term monitoring and evaluation, including functional and ecosystem services' indicators, to improve and spread the practice of ecological restoration.

Ecological restoration is key to counteracting anthropogenic degradation of biodiversity and to reducing disaster risk. However, there is limited knowledge of barriers hindering the wider implementation of restoration practices, despite high-level political priority to halt the loss of biodiversity. In Europe, progress on ecological restoration has been slow and insufficient to meet international agreements and comply with European Union Nature Directives. We assessed European restoration experts' perceptions on barriers to restoration in Europe, and their relative importance, through a multiple expert consultation using a Delphi process. We found that experts share a common multi-dimensional concept of ecological restoration. Experts identified a large number of barriers (33) to the advancement of ecological restoration in Europe. Major barriers pertained to the socio-economic, not the environmental, domain. The three most important being insufficient funding, conflicting interests among different stakeholders, and low political priority given to restoration. Our results emphasize the need to increase political commitment at all levels, comply with existing nature laws, and optimize the use of financial resources by increasing funds for ecological restoration and eradicate environmentally harmful subsidies. The experts also call for the integration of ecological restoration into land-use planning and facilitating stakeholders' collaboration. Our study identifies key barriers, discusses ways to overcome the main barriers to ER in Europe, and contributes knowledge to support the implementation of the European Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, and the EU 2030 Restoration Plan in particular.

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