The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced a partnership aimed at the restoration of at least 150 million hectares of forests.
The partnership is intended to contribute to climate change mitigation, ensure the continued provision of forest ecosystem services, and support rural livelihoods.
4 September 2014: The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) have announced a partnership intended to support the 2011 ‘Bonn Challenge on Forests, Climate Change and Biodiversity,’ which aims to restore at least 150 million hectares of degraded forest landscapes by 2020.
The partnership will link the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation (UN-REDD) and the IUCN-coordinated Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration, and is meant to contribute to climate change mitigation, ensure the continued provision of forest ecosystem services, and support rural livelihoods through forest restoration. Restored areas are expected to sequester and additional 1 gigatonne of carbon from the atmosphere every year, according to UNEP.
The partnership will provide a help desk to assess forest restoration opportunities, a global map of benefits from restoration, and support the integration of forest restoration into REDD+. “This collaboration will add new momentum to a mission of great significance to UNEP, by strengthening a critical dimension of REDD+,” said Mette L. Wilkie, Director of Environmental Policy Implementation at UNEP.
Momentum from the partnership is expected to increase pledges for forest restoration in the build up to the Secretary General’s Climate Summit to be held in September in New York, US. At present, some 20 million hectares of restoration commitments to the Bonn Challenge have been pledged by 5 countries and alliances. [UNEP Press Release]