The European project OCEAN CITIZEN, funded by the European Commission, aims to develop an innovative and sustainable model for the restoration of coastal and marine ecosystems, with a particular focus on the regeneration of marine algal and animal forests. Within this framework, the present study is part of Work Package 5 (WP5), which focuses on the assessment of natural capital and the sustainability level of restoration interventions through emergy analysis. The study provides a preliminary estimate of the natural capital associated with Marine Animal Forests (MAFs) at Punta Blanca, Tenerife (Spain), based on data collected through ROV video transects. The surveyed habitats encompass several biocenoses, ranging from shallow-water algal communities to deep MAFs. These latter are defined and characterized by habitat-forming and ecosystem-engineering species, such as Antipathella wollastoni (Gray, 1857), Antipathes furcata Gray, 1857, Dendrophyllia ramea (Linnaeus, 1758), Stichopathes sp., and Axinella sp. which are among the main target of the OCEAN CITIZEN restoration plan. In addition, the analysis encompassed the entire associated ecosystem, including benthic fauna, flora and demersal fishes, in order to provide a comprehensive picture of the system’s complexity. Emergy analysis was applied as a donor-side approach that quantifies, in biophysical terms, the resources invested by the environment to generate and maintain a stock of natural capital. This is expressed in a common unit, the Solar Emergy Joule (sej), which can subsequently be converted into monetary equivalents (Emergy Euro, eM€). In this preliminary stage, this allows the estimate of both the generation cost of the natural system and the value of its existence, focused on the biophysical characterization of the observed biocenosis. Overall, this approach provides a quantitative basis for the future assessment of restoration outcomes, supporting the sustainable management of MAF.