Restoring nature, reconnecting people. This was the key message of the Thirteenth European Conference on Ecological Restoration held on 5–9 of September 2022, in Alicante, Spain, which was framed within the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030 (UN Decade) and the European Union’s biodiversity strategy for 2030. The conference was a great opportunity to foster interaction, discussion and mutual learning among hundreds of experts and organizational members from 37 countries and different restoration sectors across Europe.

At the conference, Christophe Besacier, Senior Forestry Officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), was the keynote speaker of the plenary session titled “The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration: an opportunity to upscale restoration and to share good practices in Europe by 2030”, which took place on 6 September. He introduced this session as a key opportunity to update the community of the European chapter of the Society for Ecological Restoration on what is going on in the context of the UN Decade. The first segment of his speech provided an overview of the main progress achieved in the implementation of the UN Decade, including the following aspects: 

• To prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide, the UN Decade was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly on 1 March 2019, with FAO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as the leading agencies. 
• In 2020, its strategy and visual identity were released, followed by the official launch of the UN Decade in September 2021, and the publication of an action plan for the implementation of the strategy in August 2022.  
• The governance structure of the UN Decade comprises a core team, a strategy group, a coordination group, five taskforces (on best practices, finance, monitoring, science and youth), more than 100 partners and an advisory board.  
• A first call for World Restoration Flagships was launched in January 2022, aiming to give visibility to successful restoration actions on the ground, and inspire and accelerate large-scale restoration. The shortlisted flagships are expected to be announced at the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in December 2022. 
• A multipartner trust fund was established in 2021 by FAO and UNEP to support the implementation of the UN Decade and the World Restoration Flagships. 

During the second segment, a summary was provided on the main achievements and ongoing efforts of the Best Practices and Monitoring Taskforces, both led by FAO.  

The Best Practices Taskforce is a collaborative effort focused on knowledge dissemination and capacity development, to help achieve the vision of the UN Decade. Its main achievements include the publications on the ten principles for ecosystem restoration and the global capacity needs assessment, and the development of the framework for dissemination of good practices. In particular, the importance of the publication on the ten principles was stressed as a key step towards clarifying the debate on what is good restoration for the global community. 

Furthermore, he encouraged participants to engage in ongoing taskforce efforts to: 1) help shape the Capacity, Knowledge and Learning Action Plan for the UN Decade; 2) help develop Standards of Practice for Ecosystem Restoration; and 3) share good practices through the framework launched during the online Global Landscapes Forum (GLF)–FAO Digital Forum.  

The session was concluded with the main updates from the Monitoring Taskforce, whose work focuses on the shared vision that “sound monitoring can catalyse investments and ensure science-based actions.” Among its main achievements, the taskforce has launched the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring (FERM) registry, the new version of the FERM geospatial platform, as well as a publication on global indicators. Currently, it is focusing on developing a methodology for monitoring and reporting on Target 2 of the Convention on Biological Diversity post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. 

You can watch the recording of the session here.  

Christophe Besacier (FAO), Andrea Romero (FAO) and Cristiane Sater (FAO)