The Fifteenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity was held from 7 to 19 December 2022 in Montreal, Canada. Given the broad recognition of the critical need to reverse the degradation of ecosystems, restoration was a key topic in the agenda. At the conference, the Restoration Day event was organized with the main purpose of announcing the first ten World Restoration Flagships chosen from the call for nominations launched by the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030 (hereafter the “UN Decade”) in January 2022.

The day started with a high-level opening and scene-setting session. Following this, there were five thematic sessions, which were organized according to the core topics of the UN Decade task forces (on best practices, youth, monitoring, finance, and science and traditional knowledge) through which the ten World Restoration Flagships were announced. In particular, the session on best practices provided an opportunity for the FAO-led Task Force on Best Practices – a collaborative effort on capacity development and knowledge dissemination – to present the following products:

1. The Standards of practice to guide ecosystem restoration: a contribution to the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration was developed in partnership with the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) in collaboration with 15 organizations. These standards include over 250 recommended practices organized in five components (assessment, planning, implementation, ongoing management and monitoring) and 45 subcategories to assist practitioners with application of the UN Decade principles when conducting restoration projects. The draft standards were subject to a series of consultative processes, including a global consultation open for one month, which were advertised to the restoration community and available on the UN Decade website. Over 400 individuals from diverse organizations and geographic regions provided comments during the global consultation. Each comment was evaluated, and the text was adjusted as appropriate to create a summary report of the standards. A beta version, which is undergoing targeted consultations with Indigenous Peoples, will be finalized and released by September 2023.
2. The Capacity, Knowledge and Learning Action Plan for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration includes eight key initiatives for capacity and knowledge development, which address gaps identified through a global capacity needs assessment. In particular, the first and second initiatives focus on developing and enhancing access to educational resources and programmes targeting university students, professors, primary and secondary schoolchildren, teachers, non-governmental organizations and restoration practitioners. The third initiative targets multiple dimensions of capacity development within communities while the fourth initiative generates greater knowledge sharing and information on the contribution of Indigenous Peoples’ food, knowledge and territorial management systems to ecosystem conservation and restoration. The fifth initiative raises the capacity to mainstream ecosystem restoration through extension and advisory services provided to smallholder farmers and landowners. The sixth initiative targets high-level policymakers while the seventh and eighth initiatives enhance the capacities of those within the finance and private sectors as well as economic modellers of restoration costs and benefits. Each item builds upon existing initiatives to create synergies and further develop ongoing efforts in capacity development led by global groups and organizations.
3. The Framework for the Dissemination of Good Restoration Practices was created to facilitate knowledge sharing among practitioners. Embedded in the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring (FERM) registry, it allows for the documentation of good practices from restoration initiatives previously registered in the FERM registry. In addition, it includes a common search engine to link and facilitate access to good practices collected from various allied platforms including GoProFor, Panorama Solutions and WOCAT, besides the FERM registry.

The most advanced versions of the three products will be presented during the V Colombian Congress and VI Ibero-American and Caribbean Congress on Ecological Restoration to be held in June 2023 in Bogotá, Colombia.

Andrea Romero (FAO) and Cristiane Sater (FAO)