The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030 (hereafter UN Decade) Learning Session “Collecting and disseminating good practices on ecosystem restoration” took place on 22 June 2023.

The Task Force on Best Practices (TFBP) – led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) – organized the Learning Session to improve knowledge sharing and capacity development throughout the UN Decade. The main objective of this session was to raise awareness about the importance of sharing good restoration practices to enhance the capacity of restoration practitioners. Time was allocated to showcase platforms available for documenting and disseminating good practices for ecosystem restoration, including the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring (FERM), LIFE GoProFor, PANORAMA - Solutions for a Healthy Planet (hereafter PANORAMA), and The World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT), with a live demonstration of a common search engine. 

The event was moderated by James Obata – Communications Officer at FAO – who presented the day’s agenda and the overall scope of the learning session.

The opening remarks came from Christophe Besacier – Senior Forestry Officer and Coordinator of the Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism (FLRM) at FAO, as well as TFBP Co-leader – who briefly described the objectives of the session and introduced the UN Decade. He went into detail about how the TFBP has created a collaborative effort on knowledge dissemination and capacity development, as well as how there must be a shared vision of ecosystem restoration. He also highlighted the achievements and ongoing efforts of the TFBP, including the publications Standards of practice to guide ecosystem restoration and Capacity, Knowledge and Learning Action Plan for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

Andrea Romero – Facilitator on the TFBP and Consultant with the FLRM – then introduced the framework for collecting and disseminating good practices throughout the UN Decade as one of the ongoing efforts of the TFBP. Andrea began by showing how the framework is integrated into the FERM platform, which was established to track global progress and disseminate good practices for the UN Decade, as well as to report areas under restoration for the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework Target 2. She gave an overview of the main features of FERM, emphasized the importance of documenting and disseminating good practices, and introduced the accepted definition of a good practice for restoration. Furthermore, she introduced the common search engine as a tool to capitalize on existing efforts and enhance the dissemination of good practices from collaborating platforms such as WOCAT, LIFE GoProFor, PANORAMA and the FERM Registry. 

Tatenda Lemann – Senior Research Scientist, Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern – gave a presentation on WOCAT, the global network on sustainable land management (SLM). He explained how WOCAT supports the compilation, documentation, evaluation, dissemination and application of SLM knowledge and field-tested practices. He described the WOCAT Global SLM Database, including the documentation process of SLM practices and how the platform generates harmonized and standardized data with multilingual open access – each embedded at local, national, regional and global levels.

From the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Helga Mahler – Coordinator of the Joint PANORAMA Partnership Management Unit – and Hannah Weggerle – Advisor for Forest Landscape Restoration – presented how the PANORAMA platform has created a cross-sectoral and global learning and exchange network. As of October 2022, PANORAMA has compiled 1 186 solutions through 861 solution providers in over 180 countries, promoting a wide variety of ecosystem restoration solutions through a vast database of case studies. The overarching concept of PANORAMA is the sharing of success stories throughout the restoration community, while enabling South-South exchange and joint learning.

Serena Corezzola – Technical Manager and member of the Coordination Team of forest-related LIFE project with D.R.E.AM. Italia – demonstrated how LIFE GoProFor has compiled a database of forest-related Good Practices with the main goal of integrating forest management and biodiversity conservation. She explained how this platform capitalizes on experience and results that already exist regarding forests by compiling data from more than 140 LIFE projects in 22 European countries with a rigorous selection process to determine their final selection of good practices. 

Cristiane Sater Melnik – Facilitator on the TFBP and Consultant with the FLRM – then presented the FERM registry, explaining how it can consistently and transparently monitor, report and share information on restoration initiatives while documenting good practices derived from the restoration initiatives already registered. She then performed a walk-through for end-users to register their restoration initiatives and document good practices through the platform. She further explained the next steps regarding how post-submission data is then reviewed and disseminated through FERM to a global audience.

Qingqing Lyu – Junior Professional Officer, Land and Water Division, FAO, and TFBP Member – gave a live, interactive demonstration of the common search engine, one of the new features of the FERM platform, now freely accessible online, which enables users to effectively search, filter, and access an extensive array of good restoration practices.

Following the FERM demonstration, there was a session where participants were able to pose a variety of questions to the panel experts.

Vera Boerger – Senior Land and Water Officer, FAO, and TFBP Co-leader – then gave her closing remarks, stating how the common search engine promotes collaboration among the different platforms and guide users to find good restoration practices based on their specific needs. She encouraged participants to document and consult good practices for restoration through the different platforms that collaborate with the UN Decade.

Watch the recording of the session here.

For more information, please contact [email protected].

Task Force on Best Practices