Item 8.5 of the Twenty-Sixth Session of the Committee on Forestry (COFO 26) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), titled “Restoration and the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030”, took place on Wednesday 5 October 2022 in Rome, Italy.  

The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030 (UN Decade) was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly “with the aim of supporting and scaling up efforts to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide and raise awareness of the importance of successful ecosystem restoration”. FAO and the United Nations Environment Programme are co-leading the implementation of the UN Decade worldwide, ensuring strong cooperation with countries, other UN agencies and partners. 

This session aimed to provide an update on the implementation of the UN Decade, with particular reference to the restoration of forested landscapes, and obtain guidance from COFO 26 on the implications of addressing the restoration of these ecosystems for FAO policies and programmes. 

The session started with a 30-minute, high-level panel moderated by British-African broadcaster Henry Bonsu, former producer for the BBC’s Radio 4 programme Today. 

The first panellist to take the floor, Her Royal Highness Princess Basma bint Ali of Jordan, stressed the need to celebrate all restoration examples that were yielding fruitful results and acknowledge that a way forward could only be achieved through the cooperation of all stakeholders. 

The princess gave as an example the highly successful Black Jaguar Foundation, a non-profit organization working to reforest the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado savannah in Brazil. The foundation is planting 1.7 billion native trees to establish a biodiversity corridor along the Araguaia River using five different methods of restoration and partnering with farmers to reforest some of their land area. The success of this initiative could be an inspiration to other worldwide initiatives.  

The princess’s speech was followed by a presentation by Sandra Patricia Vilardy Quiroga, Vice Minister of Policies and Environmental Standardization of Colombia, who highlighted the country’s huge efforts to implement nature-based solutions. Quiroga stressed that a priority for the new government was to step up forest and landscape restoration action in the country, particularly in wetlands, which cover 30 percent of the national land and have high carbon storage potential. She described how one major challenge was to stop deforestation driven by illegal crops, explaining that Colombia had been working on forest conservation contracts with people returning from the war and aimed to move from an economy based on illegal products to an economy based on forest-based solutions.  

Robert Nasi, Managing Director and Acting CEO of CIFOR-ICRAF, and Director-General of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), emphasized how restoration should be people-centred and encourage the empowerment of local communities, promoting a bottom-up approach that will also allow people to see tangible benefits at the local level.  

After their speeches, thanks to Bonsu’s swift moderation, the three panellists were able to answer questions and shed further light on the topics discussed. 

They highlighted the importance of engaging with local communities, forging restoration alliances beyond the environmental sector and strengthening partnerships.  

After the high-level panel, a discussion followed which saw the participation of Brazil, Chile, Czechia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea  and the United States of America. 

The countries praised the efforts of the UN Decade and recognized its role in providing a wide range of benefits to ecosystems and people.  

Click here to watch the recording of the session.  

Christophe Besacier (FAO), Giorgio Millesimi (FAO) and Andrea Romero Montoya (FAO)