There is a clear link between forest and landscape restoration (FLR) and climate change mitigation and adaptation, which highlights the synergistic opportunities between these two objectives. The session titled “What role can forest and landscape restoration play in the climate change agenda?” at the XV World Forestry Congress, which took place in Seoul, Republic of Korea, from 2 to 6 May, illustrated some of these opportunities. 

Globally, land degradation has significant negative ecological and social impacts, affecting approximately 3.2 billion people and 2 billion hectares of land. It accelerates global climate change, increases biodiversity loss, induces poverty, migration and conflicts, and negatively affects the greenhouse gas fluxes between the atmosphere and ecosystems, which exacerbates livelihood and food security. Addressing these various and interrelated challenges is often the principal motivation for many FLR interventions. But restoration practices also have further benefits, including carbon sequestration and avoiding greenhouse gas emissions – thus contributing to the deceleration of climate change and reduction of climate change impacts – improving the ecological resilience of landscapes and reducing disaster risks.  

Many new projects are under preparation thanks to the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, such as the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and many associated pledges. The decade, which was launched in June 2021, provides an important opportunity to better link and promote restoration with the climate agenda, and support the wider Build Back Better objective post COVID-19, and green recovery activities. Speakers at the session presented various ongoing projects, which contextualized and exemplified the tangible linkages between FLR and climate change mitigation, and further inspired discussions on the benefits of multifaceted approaches to restoration initiatives.  

Gabriel Labbate from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) gave a keynote speech that emphasized the urgency of reaching 2030 and 2050 climate change targets, and demonstrated how approaches such as FLR can be used to support countries and projects to achieve these. Key findings of FLR projects, tools and methodologies, developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Climate Initiative of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (IKI-BMU) and their partners, were then presented, highlighting their role in supporting the climate change adaptation and mitigation agendas. The presentation included an overview of key messages and recommendations from the upcoming FAO policy paper by Christophe Besacier on links between FLR and climate change. Lessons learned on key opportunities provided by climate finance for supporting FLR were then shared by project partners: restoration under the Adaptation Fund in Vanuatu by Godfrey Bome, preparation for Adaptation Fund projects to support restoration in Burkina Faso by Damas Poda, and an overview of restoration activities financed by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) in Fiji by Deborah Sue. 

The use of restoration-aligned targets in national climate policy was then illustrated by Alhame Sghir, who presented Morocco’s IKI project on mainstreaming FLR within their nationally determined contributions. Tools measuring the carbon storage impacts of FLR to support ecological resilience are also an important element of identifying the potential of restoration to  increase environmental, social and economic resilience to climate change. Benjamin De Ridder presented key tools, such as the Ex-Ante Carbon Balance Tool (EX-ACT), used in projects in Guinea and Kenya, while Benjamin Singer from the GCF further emphasized the importance of the FLR approach to support their projects. These examples and discussions with the panel demonstrated that FLR presents a clear opportunity to enable transformative change for both policy and investments related to climate change mitigation and adaptation outcomes. Given the urgency to meet climate change targets, greater synergies between FLR and climate change initiatives have the potential to increase co-benefits for both restoration and resilient outcomes. 

You can watch the recording of the session here. 

Lucy Garrett (FAO)