21 May 2012: Responding to the Aichi Target that calls for restoring at least 15% of the world’s damaged ecosystems by 2020, adopted in the framework of the Strategic Plan 2011-2020 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), botanic gardens around the world have formed the Ecological Restoration Alliance, which plans to restore 100 damaged, degraded or destroyed ecosystems.

The Alliance will bring together the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (UK); the Royal Botanic Garden Edingurgh (UK); the Missouri Botanical Garden (US); the Brackenhurst Botanic Garden (Kenya); Kings Park and Botanic Garden (Australia); the National Tropical Botanical Garden (US); the Rio de Janeiro Botanic Garden (Brazil); the Instituto de Ecologia, A.C. “Francisco Javier Clavijero Botanic Garden” (Mexico); the Royal Botanical Gardens (Canada); and the Botanic Gardens Conservation International. Other botanic gardens in China, South Africa, the UK, the US and Venezuela are committed to joining or supporting the Alliance. Restoration projects will be conducted on six continents. Places to be targeted include tropical forests, prairies, wild places within cities, wetlands and coastal sites.

Target 15 under the Strategic Goal D “Enhance the benefits to all from biodiversity and ecosystem services” of the Aichi Targets calls for the restoration of at least 15% of degraded ecosystems by 2020, in order to enhance ecosystem resilience and the contribution of biodiversity to carbon stocks. [Botanic Gardens Press Release]