On the 18th December, the Task Force on Monitoring for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration met online to review the progress made since its launch in March, and to plan for what’s to come next. The Task Force has cultivated a strong network by engaging restoration practitioners and experts from around the world, to discuss, brainstorm and test methods for monitoring, laying the groundwork for the development of a holistic monitoring system aiming to track restoration actions and to inspire further political will – both of which are critical to the success of the UN Decade, set to run...

Harbouring the vast majority of life on Earth, forests are a vital natural resource, which provide many ecosystem services essential for life as well as for human livelihoods. Forests are sources of important raw materials such as timber, woodfuel and Non-Timber-Forest Products (NTFP). However, competition to access forests, like many natural resources, is often a motive for human conflicts. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that in the last 60 years, at least 40 per cent of all intrastate conflicts have a link to natural resources. This places natural resources as one of a country’s most critical assets for peacebuilding, with efforts...

The number of conflicts related to natural resources is increasing. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that in the last 60 years, at least 40 per cent of all intrastate conflicts have a link to natural resources. Those conflicts are stimulated by the exploitation of natural resources, whether high-value resources like timber, diamonds, gold, minerals and oil, or scarce ones like fertile land and water. Natural resources are one of a country’s most critical assets for peacebuilding. Land, forests, minerals, oil, water, and other resources are the foundations for livelihoods of local people as well as for national economies. They...

Given the large fraction of global land occupied by forests and their importance to mitigate climate change, it is still surprising how little we know about their dynamics, capacity to store CO2 and biodiversity. The need is more crucial at the start of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and particularly timely considering country commitments to mitigate climate change under REDD+ and the Paris Agreement via their Nationally Determined Contributions. Recent global biodiversity assessments by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), documenting impacts of biodiversity on the Aichi Biodiversity targets, also point towards the need to closely...

Bien que nécessaire, il n'est pas toujours facile d'obtenir des contributions à l'élaboration d'un projet de la part d'un large éventail de parties prenantes, en particulier pour les projets qui couvrent plusieurs pays et plusieurs langues. Tel était le défi à relever pour le projet : Transformation globale des forêts pour les populations et le climat : un accent sur l'Afrique de l'Ouest. Ce projet de cinq ans (2019-2023) mis en œuvre par la FAO en collaboration avec la Communauté économique des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (CEDEAO) et avec le soutien financier de l'Agence suédoise de coopération internationale pour...