Ecosystems provide life-supporting systems for our societies, yet increasing threats from anthropogenic activities, climate change, and natural environmental changes affect them. Protecting and restoring these ecosystems remains critical for a sustainable future.
To raise awareness, the Royal Academy of Forestry and Agriculture (KSLA) and SIANI organized a webinar on Ecosystem Restoration for a Sustainable Development.
In the opening speech, Anders Wijkman, opinionmaker and Honorary President of the Club of Rome, stressed the urgent need for action in the Global South, home to the richest biodiversity, emphasizing that poverty eradication must not come at the cost of ecosystem degradation. Professor August Temu, retired within the College of Forestry Wildlife and Tourism (CFWT) at the Sokoine University of Agriculture and engaged for over 20 years with the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) stressed that climate change and ecosystem degradation form a parallel crisis. Ecosystem restoration can rebuild degraded landscapes, enhance biodiversity, and strengthen climate resilience thus also contributing to addressing these challenges.
The decade of restoration
Multilateral cooperation and agreements have gained prominence in restoration. Key initiatives included the G20 Global Land Initiative, which aims to reduce 50 % of degraded land by 2040; the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework, which seeks to restore 30% of all degraded ecosystems and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration which focuses on preventing, halting and reversing the degradation of ecosystems focusing on existing commitments and implementation of the Rio Conventions and Sustainable Development Goals. As part of the webinar discussions, experts addressed these global policy efforts and their implementations.
Path forwards – commitment is not the issue
Natalia Alekseeva, Coordinator of the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration emphasized that the path forward includes a global movement, political will and enhancing technological capacity. Reaching the middle of the decade and shaping the upcoming 5 years Natalia expressed that:
“We are trying to work more with regional and national actions, for example with the EU Restoration Law.”
In other words, aligning policies and commitments across different governance levels becomes essential.
Building on the idea of alignment and collaboration, Clarisse Kehler Siebert, Senior Policy Advisor at the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and Co-Chair for the Bern synergies process for cooperation among Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), stressed the importance of collaboration and coordination across multilateral agreements.
Despite numerous global commitments to ecosystem restoration – land degradation remains a pressing challenge, leading to the loss of land productivity, biodiversity, and essential ecosystem services. In that sense, Muralee Thummarukudy, Director of the coordinating office from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), claimed that commitment is not the issue. Instead, he identified three key barriers: the lack of comprehensive national legislation despite sectoral laws, the need for effective finance mechanisms to support restoration including engaging more private actors. Even if funding is available there is a shortage of skilled professionals to turn commitments into actions. Addressing these challenges is crucial for successful ecosystem restoration.
In terms of the path forwards, Jakob Granit, General Director at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), highlighted the interest for new partnerships in the framing of Development for a New Era guided by freedom, empowerment, and sustainable growth. Sida reiterates its interest in engaging through trade, fostering competitiveness, and enabling more effective finance for climate change, including biodiversity protection and further exploring how to integrate research early on in their context analysis.
