NAIROBI, Kenya, 1 March 2023 (ENS) – For the first time, the United Nations has identified 10 pioneering efforts from around the world that are restoring the herbal world. Declared beacons of global restoration, those 10 projects can now gain UN backing advice, promotion and investment for their paintings to save and oppose the degradation of herbal spaces.
The world’s 10 most sensible beacons of recovery span 23 countries and all ecosystems. Together, they aim to repair more than 68 million hectares, a domain larger than France, and create around 15 million jobs.
They decided as a component of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, 2021-2030, a global movement coordinated through the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, founded in Nairobi, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO, founded in Rome. It is known as the United Nations Decade.
By opting for the world’s first beacons of recovery, the UN Decade seeks to honour examples of long-term, large-scale ecosystem recovery by incorporating the 10 recovery principles of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen drew on her more than 30 years of experience in sustainability, strategy and foreign environmental operations when she presented the first flagship winners at the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity in December. “Transforming our relationship with nature is key to reversing the triple global crisis of climate change, the loss of nature and biodiversity, and pollutants and waste,” Andersen said.
“These 10 most sensible beacons of global recovery show that with political will, science and cross-border collaboration, we can achieve the goals of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and forge a more sustainable long-term not only for the planet but also for those who call it home,” he said.
Between 2015 and 2019, Andersen served as Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, which maintains the authoritative Red List of Threatened Species. It knows that by halting and reversing the degradation of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, one million species are threatened with extinction, a discovery that first emerged from a 2019 report through the UN-backed Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, IPBES.
Scientists say restoring just 15 percent of ecosystems in priority areas, across habitats, can reduce extinctions by 60 percent.
The 10 most sensible flagships of global recovery are:
1 – Trinational Atlantic Forest Pact
Multiple superbiodiversity ecosystems make up the Atlantic Forest, which extends from northeastern Brazil along the Atlantic coast and inland to northern Argentina and eastern Paraguay. Also one of the world’s most endangered biomes, the vast forest has been shattered through centuries of logging, agriculture, expansion and city construction.
At least 6000 species of plants, 263 amphibians and 160 mammals, totaling 22 species of primates, are local and from this forested region. More than 52% of tree species and 92% of amphibians in the Atlantic Forest are found nowhere else on Earth.
Today, the Atlantic Forest Trinational Pact, endorsed by more than three hundred organizations, is identified through the United Nations as one of the 10 lighthouses in restoration in the world.
Hundreds of organizations, communities and Americans have cooperated to repair the Atlantic Forest in the 3 countries: Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. Their projects create wildlife corridors for endangered species, such as the jaguar and golden lion tamarin, sources of drinking water for other people and nature, counter and increase resilience to climate change, and create thousands of jobs.
Some 700,000 hectares have already been restored, with one million hectares in 2030 and 15 million hectares in 2050.
This beacon of recovery is coordinated through the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact and the Atlantic Forest Restoration Trinational Network.
It receives from more than three hundred partners, including: Brazilian Society for Ecological Restoration, International Union for Conservation of Nature, The Nature Conservancy in Brazil, World Resources Institute Brazil, World Wide Fund Brazil, WWF Paraguay, Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina and many other international and local organizations.
Some spaces of the Atlantic Forest are already listed as World Heritage by UNESCO, the Southeast Atlantic Forest Reserves in the Brazilian states of Paraná and São Paulo are 25 spaces covering some 470,000 hectares.
In Paraguay, Mbaracayú National Park and Laguna San Rafael National Park, two of the largest remaining blocks of the Atlantic Forest, have been identified through UNESCO as biosphere reserves.
WWF presented the Paraguayan with the Leaders for the Living Planet award for the popularity of its efforts to conserve the Alto Paraná Atlantic Forest.
2 – Abu Dhabi Coastal and Marine Restoration
Safeguarding the world’s largest dugong population is one of the goals of the UAE’s crusade to repair seagrass beds, the favorite food of vegetarian dugongs, as well as coral reefs and mangroves along the Gulf Coast.
March 1 is World Seagrass Day, a day to raise awareness and celebrate the role seagrass beds play in creating oceans and coastlines and their role as a climate solution. This special day highlights the importance of protecting seagrass ecosystems and expanding their resilience to climate change. pollutants and other human impacts.
Abu Dhabi needs its coastal ecosystems to be resilient to global warming and immediate coastal progression in what is already one of the world’s warmest seas.
Coastal and marine recovery projects in the emirate of Abu Dhabi target situations for many other plants and animals, adding 4 species of turtles and 3 types of dolphins.
Local communities will benefit from the revival of some of the 500 fish species, as well as increased opportunities for ecotourism.
Parts of Abu Dhabi’s coastal and marine spaces are already protected.
Environmental activist Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (1918-2004), the founding father of the United Arab Emirates, established the Sheikh Zayed Network of Protected Areas, comprising six sites:
This flagship global recovery allocation is coordinated through the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency. Some 7500 hectares of coastal spaces have already been restored and an additional 4500 hectares will be restored until 2030.
3 – Great Green Wall for Restoration and Peace
The Great Green Wall is an ambitious initiative to repair savannas, grasslands and farmland in Africa so that families and biodiversity can cope with the climate, replace and save the desertification of already vulnerable communities that threaten the most.
Launched through the African Union in 2007, this flagship product targets the lives of millions of people in the Sahel region by creating a belt of green and productive landscapes in 11 countries.
Originally conceived as a way to combat desertification and curb the expansion of the Sahara by planting a wall of trees that stretches across the Sahel, the modern green wall has evolved into a program to promote water harvesting techniques, protect vegetation and indigenous land-use techniques throughout the north. . Africa.
The Great Green Wall’s 2030 goals are to repair one hundred million hectares, sequester 250 million tons of carbon, and create 10 million jobs.
The Initiative brings together more than 20 countries, joined by Algeria, Burkina Faso, Benin, Chad, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Gambia and Tunisia.
While the Great Green Wall targets degraded lands stretching across the continent to be restored, the flagship team of the United Nations Decade for Global Restoration targets the countries of Burkina Faso and neighboring Niger.
Kollo, a giant village and urban commune in southwestern Niger, is one of many municipalities where FAO, UNEP, government authorities, donors such as France and Germany and NGOs help communities repair forests and soils.
The initiative works with communities in Niger and Burkina Faso to implement recovery projects and expand capacity to plan and execute their own investments.
The initiative “supports green traders to ensure the implementation of sustainable recovery investments and provides benefits to the most vulnerable populations,” said Christophe Besacier, coordinator of FAO’s Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism.
It’s a technique that can be extended to Burkina Faso, Niger and neighboring countries, “offering hope for a longer term at a time when confrontation and lack of trust add to pressures on communities,” Besacier said.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in London has an assignment in Burkina Faso and a keen interest in recovery. The Kew Great Green Wall cross-border pilot allocation aims to gather environmental and social knowledge on land reclamation to count larger recovery allocations in the Sahara and Sahel region. .
“In Africa’s drylands, adding sub-Saharan Africa, increasing pressure on fragile resources has led to continued land degradation, leading to increased poverty which, in a vicious circle, leads to further land degradation. The effects of this desertification are devastating for communities that rely heavily on herbal resources and are also on the front lines of climate change,” Kew says on its website.
This flagship recovery mission is coordinated through the Pan-African Great Green Wall Agency, the Great Green Wall Initiative for the Sahara and Sahel Burkina Faso, the National Great Green Wall Agency of Nigeria, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, The Great Green Wall Accelerator, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the Centre for International Forestry Research, the Global Landscapes Forum and the World Food Programme.
Participants aim to build a global partnership to address the demanding situations of desertification, land degradation and drought, climate replacement and biodiversity loss in Africa. They intend to halt and oppose trends in land degradation and biodiversity loss, build resilience to replace climate in Africa. drylands through a coherent and not unusual set of interventions.
And equally important, they intend to provide a policy framework for the good fortune of those conservation efforts. Many of the best good luck efforts are personal.
“Listening to my grandmother talk about the forest, how she provided our circle of relatives with everything they needed, kept the forest alive in me, in my mind and in my heart. Without their stories, I wouldn’t dedicate my life to restoring the forest, I might not even sense the urgency,” said Saydou Kalaga from Burkina Faso, co-director of Men and Earth, an NGO wife of Ecosia, the German search engine that uses its source of income to plant millions of trees.
“We want to teach younger generations about the price of forests,” Kalaga said. “We want to recreate that connection between other people and nature, with the same soil that supports all kinds of life on earth. “
4 – Rejuvenation of the Ganges
Restoring the physical state of the Ganges, India’s sacred river, is in the midst of a major effort to pollute, rebuild the forest canopy and provide a wide variety of benefits to the 520 million people living around its vast watershed, coordinated and funded across India. government. Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganges Rejuvenation.
Climate change, population growth, industrialization and irrigation have degraded the Ganges in its 2,525-kilometer arc from the Himalayas in the south to the Bay of Bengal.
Known as Namami Ganges, this flagship product of global recovery is implemented through the National Bargain Council, a registered company, and coordinated through the Government of India’s National Ganga Clean-Up Mission. It is supported by the World Bank, Japan’s International Cooperation Agency. and the German Development Agency.
Launched in 2014, the Namami Gange government’s initiative is rejuvenating, protecting and maintaining the Ganges and its tributaries, reforesting portions of the Ganges basin and selling sustainable agriculture.
It also aims to revive key species, adding river dolphins, softshell turtles, otters and hilsa tarpon.
For example, the Mission says it is dealing with some of the river’s worst pollutants: sewage and cremations.
It is about “building wastewater remediation capacity”. With 48 wastewater control projects under way, 99 sanitation projects have been completed in the states of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan. In addition, 27 sanitation projects are being tendered and 8 new sanitation projects have been introduced in those states.
The Mission claims to have “initiated” paintings in Ghats/Crematorium projects for the construction, modernization and renovation of 270 sites.
“River surface clean-up for the collection of forged floating debris from the surface of the Ghats and the river and its disposal are underway and put into operation at 11 sites,” the Mission said.
And biodiversity conservation is underway. To restore viable populations of all endemic and threatened river species to their full ancient range, organizations large and small will be involved. expand science-based aquatic species recovery plans for the Ganges involving stakeholders, as well as the conservation and recovery of aquatic biodiversity.
The Indian government’s investment amounts to US$ 4. 25 billion. The initiative has the participation of 230 organizations, with 1,500 km of river restored to date.
In addition, 30,000 hectares have been forested so far, with a goal of 134,000 hectares by 2030.
5 – Multinational Mountain Initiative
Climate change is melting glaciers, eroding soils and pushing species up toward extinction. The water that the mountains supply to farms and villages in the lowlands becomes unreliable.
Ecosystem restoration in mountainous regions is urgent, as mountainous regions face unique challenges, in Eastern Europe, in the rugged peaks and deep valleys of Central Asia, a fertile plateau or a terrain of five volcanoes in Africa.
The multi-country mountain initiative, founded in Serbia, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda and Rwanda, shows how projects in such varied regions are employing recovery to make mountain ecosystems more resilient so they can conserve their unique wildlife and deliver significant benefits to people.
Uganda and Rwanda are inhabited by one of two remaining populations of the endangered mountain gorilla. Due to habitat protection, gorilla numbers have doubled in the last 30 years.
In Kyrgyzstan, which is highly mountainous and dotted with glaciers, pastoralists manage occasional pastures more sustainably to provide more food for Asian livestock and mountain goats. With the backs of their prey, mountain goats, the elusive snow leopards, jump gently.
In Serbia, the government is expanding the forest canopy and revitalizing pastures in two areas.
Brown bears have returned to forests, where recovery is also helping ecosystems from wildfires.
This flagship global recovery programme is coordinated through the United Nations Environment Programme, the Mountain Partnership and the Carpathian Convention, a sub-regional treaty to promote sustainable progress and coverage of the Carpathian region. It was signed in 2003 through seven Carpathian states: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine.
6 – Small Island Developing States Restoration Campaign
The SIDS SIDS Ecosystem Restoration Flagship Project of Small Island Developing States is intensifying the “mountain range to reef restoration” of ecosystems in the world’s oceans.
Focusing on 3 small emerging island states: Vanuatu in the Pacific, Saint Lucia in the Caribbean and Comoros on the east coast of southern Africa, the aim is to inspire “blue economic growth” to help island communities recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. and tackling global warming.
UNEP leader Andersen said: “Comoros, Saint Lucia and Vanuatu are on the frontline of the fight against climate change, a crisis that is not their fault. His impressive work, now revered as a component of the World Restoration’s first group of Flagships, to tackle critical expanses of the ocean, whether to counter and adapt to climate change, teaches classes for the world.
The goals of this organization come with reducing pressures on coral reefs, which are vulnerable to damage from typhoons, so that fish populations can recover. Seagrass beds, mangroves and forests are among the ecosystems being restored.
In addition to creating a set of responses for the sustainable development of islands, this landmark effort aims to magnify the voices of island nations facing emerging sea levels and storms intensifying due to climate change.
This flagship recovery programme is coordinated through the Government of the Comoros, the Government of Saint Lucia and the Government of Vanuatu, the Small Island Developing States Nature Coalition, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the United Nations Environment Programme.
Alfred Prospere, Saint Lucia’s Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Rural Development, said: “Living on the south-east coast of Saint Lucia, we have noticed the decline of our marine ecosystems and how the local economy has been affected by coastal degradation. Through the UN Decade Small Island Developing States (SIDS) flagship programme, we see hope for our local communities.
7 – Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative
Like many grasslands around the world, Central Asia’s windswept steppes are in decline due to spots such as overgrazing, conversion to cropland, and warming.
In Kazakhstan, the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative has been operating since 2005 to repair steppe, semi-desert and desert ecosystems in the history of the saiga, an antelope that was once abundant and is now seriously threatened by hunting and habitat loss.
In fact, the saiga population had shrunk to 50,000 in 2006 and recovered to 1. 3 million by 2022.
Beyond enhancing and protecting the steppe, this initiative has helped conserve wetlands that are an important stopover for some 10 million migratory birds.
Among the bird species are the sociable lapwing, the red-necked goose, the white-headed duck and the Siberian crane.
Altyn Dala Conservation World Restoration Flagship is coordinated through the Ministry of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources of Kazakhstan, the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan, Fauna
The Frankfurt Zoological Society, FZS, states: “Our vision is to repair fully functional steppe, semi-desert and desert ecosystems within the ancient diversity of the Kazakh saiga antelope covering about 700,000 km², which is twice the length of Germany.
Kazakhstan has some of the least biomes in the world, according to the FZS. “These temperate grasslands, winter deserts and semi-deserts are home to many endangered species and also have extensive and vital wetlands. “
“These ecosystems, found nowhere else in the world on such a pristine scale and in such pristine conditions, allow giant herds of saiga antelopes, more than 90% of the world’s population, to complete their long annual migrations,” says the FZS.
The vast steppe and semi-desert wetlands, some of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, are also key stopovers of global importance for the millions of migratory waterbirds that pass through them each year.
8 – Central American dry corridor
The Central American Dry Corridor is 1,600 kilometers long and 100 to 400 kilometers wide, covering 44 percent of the surface of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, where 11. 5 million people live in rural communities and more than a part in agriculture.
Exposed to heatwaves and unpredictable rainfall, Central America’s ecosystems and other dry-room people are vulnerable to climate change. In 2019, a fifth year of drought left 1. 2 million people in the region without food assistance.
The emblematic agroforestry recovery allocation of the Central American Dry Corridor uses classic agricultural strategies for landscape productivity, adding their biodiversity.
This project is at the center of the pioneering recovery effort that reaches six countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.
To repair this vulnerable area, FAO says that 4 investment plans have been prepared to build resilience in the Central American dry corridor.
For example, virtual ecosystems will build a market for 288 municipalities, many of which have great agricultural potential. The beneficiaries will be 22,400 agri-food manufacturers connected to rural businesses; rural cooperatives, small and medium-sized enterprises and manufacturers’ organizations.
Another hundred fountain systems will be built to increase water availability. Agroforestry systems integrate the tree canopy with crops such as coffee, cocoa and cardamom that can improve soil fertility and water availability while preserving much of the biodiversity of the original rainforest.
By 2030, the purpose is to recover 100,000 hectares and create 5,000 permanent jobs.
This flagship recovery program is coordinated through the Central American Commission on Environment and Development, the Central American Agricultural Council, the Central American Integration System, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Green Climate Fund, the Government of El Salvador, the Center for International Forestry Research and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
9 – Building with nature in Indonesia
Demak, a low-lying coastal network on the island of Java, Indonesia’s main island, has been affected by erosion, flooding and land loss due to the removal of mangroves for aquaculture ponds, land subsidence and infrastructure.
Instead of replanting mangroves, this flagship at the forefront of global recovery built fence-like structures with grass webs along the coast to soothe waves and trap sediment, creating the conditions for mangroves to recover from grasses.
The full call for this flagship product includes the words “Restoring an Eroded Marine Coast and Inspiring Large-Scale Action,” and efforts are moving forward. The total duration of the permeable structures built now extends to more than 3. 4 kilometers and two hundred hectares of mangroves restored.
In exchange for letting mangroves regenerate, farmers were trained in sustainability to increase their shrimp production.
With the regeneration of mangroves offering a new habitat for marine organisms, fishermen have noticed an improvement in their catches close to shore.
This flagship global recovery allocation is coordinated through Indonesia’s Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Indonesia’s Ministry of Public Works and Housing, Wetlands International and Ecoshape with Witteveen Bos, Deltares, TU Delft, Wageningen University.
The initiative is financially supported by: the Dutch Sustainable Water Fund on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection within the framework of the International Climate Initiative, and the Dutch Postcode Lottery.
10 – Shan-Shui Initiative in China
This ambitious initiative combines 75 large-scale projects to repair ecosystems, from mountains to coastal estuaries, across China, the world’s most populous nation.
Launched in 2016, the initiative is the result of a systematic restoration technique. The projects are part of national progress plans, landscape or basin scale paintings, come with agricultural and urban spaces, as well as herbal ecosystems, and seek to stimulate local industries. . They all come with biodiversity targets.
Examples come with the Oujiang River Headwaters Project in Zhejiang Province, which integrates clinical wisdom with classical agricultural methods, such as sloping earthworks and combining crops with fish and duck farming, to make land use more effective and sustainable.
To date, some 3. 5 million hectares have been restored. By 2030 it is 10 million hectares.
The Shan-Shui Initiative in China is coordinated through China’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Ministry of Finance, with relevant departments and local governments.
The picture of the jewels of global recovery begins
FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu of China welcomed the honours, saying: “FAO, in combination with UNEP, as co-chair of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, is pleased to recognize the 10 most ambitious, visionary and promising ecosystem recovery initiatives. . as beacons of global catering 2022. »
Dr Qu holds a PhD in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and has been at the helm of FAO since 2019, being the first Chinese citizen to do so. “By taking inspiration from these flagship products, we can receive insights into how to repair our ecosystems for increased production. , greater nutrition, better environment and better life for all, leaving no one behind,” he said.
Pending further investment from the UN Decade Multi-Partner Trust Fund, further submissions are being considered for the popularity of the flagship global recovery programme, adding recovery campaigns from Pakistan, Peru, as an initiative focused on Somalia and other drought-affected countries. .
The Decade team encourages partners to integrate weather forecasts and realistic long-term weather into their recovery efforts and urges everyone to do everything imaginable to help the planet now before it’s too late.
“There has never been a more pressing desire to revive broken ecosystems than now. The healthier our ecosystems, the healthier the planet and its inhabitants will be. Ecosystem recovery will succeed if everyone joins the #GenerationRestoration movement to prevent, halt and oppose ecosystem degradation worldwide. The UN Decade is urgent.
Countries have already committed to repairing one billion hectares, larger than China, as part of their commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement, the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, land degradation neutrality targets and the Bonn Challenge. However, little is known about progress or quality. of this restoration.
The progress of all beacons of global recovery will be transparently monitored in the Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring Framework, the platform for the UN Decade for monitoring global recovery efforts.
Featured image: The long-term golden lion tamarin like this one is brighter thanks to ongoing work to repair its grassy habitat in South America’s Atlantic Forest. March 10, 2019 (Photo via greyloch)
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