FAO.org

The Atlas of Forest Landscape Restoration Opportunity was produced by WRI in collaboration with the University of Maryland and IUCN as a contribution to the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration. The maps in the atlas are presented at a resolution of 1 km. In creating the maps contained in this atlas, the team sought to answer the following questions: How much of the world’s forest has been lost? Is it realistic to restore forests at a globally meaningful scale? How big are the restoration opportunities and where are they located? We approached the analysis into two steps. First, we would map how much forest has been lost. Then, we would map the opportunities for forests and trees to return.

This assessment determines, in a coarse but globally consistent way, the extent and location of opportunities for restoration of forests and landscapes as well as the associated potential for carbon sequestration. The results should stimulate interest in restoration among international and national policy-makers, help set the global agenda on restoration, and serve as a point of departure for more detailed assessment at the national and regional levels.

The Restoration Diagnostic is a structured method for determining the status of enabling conditions within a landscape being considered for restoration and for designing the requisite policies, practices, and measures needed for successful restoration. The Diagnostic was developed as part of the Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM) by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Restoring Nature's Capital proposes an action agenda for business, governments, and civil society to reverse ecosystem degradation. The authors contend that governance---who makes decisions, how they are made, and with what information---is at the heart of sustaining healthy ecosystems. With this as their fundamental tenet, the authors present an action agenda for reversing degradation of ecosystems and sustaining their capacity to provide vital services for generations to come. The action agenda identifies how decisions about development projects and investments can be made in ways that lead to healthy ecosystem services. These decisions, made by local and national governments, corporations, and international financial institutions, involve billions of dollars, affect huge swaths of land and water, and affect millions of people.

Ecological restoration of degraded land is a global concern. Tropical dry forest is one of the most threatened ecosystems in Colombia, with only 7% of its original cover remaining. Its restoration is a priority for the country but presents challenges, not least due to seasonal rains and long dry seasons that can impact the survivorship of planted material. To improve the effectiveness of restoration action in tropical fry forest, ResTOOL was developed to help in the appropriate choice of species and identify seed sources for the project site that meet the desired restoration objectives. ResTOOL also takes into account climate change when choosing appropriate material, and includes information about the propagation of more than 300 tree species.