We know that nature can and must be harnessed to fight climate change while we decarbonize our economies. And forests have a huge role to play.

Scientists say forest restoration and other natural solutions could provide up to one-third of the mitigation needed to keep global warming below 2°C.

However record-breaking wildfires caused by global heating and ecosystem decline are threatening our forests. Altered rainfall patterns are also lengthening fire seasons from the Mediterranean to Australia. Forest restoration can help mitigate these dangers.

“Anything that combats climate change, including restoring and expanding the store of carbon in forests, is helping to reduce the risk of extreme wildfires,” said Tim Christophersen, head of the Nature for Climate Unit at UNEP.

Large-scale forest conservation and restoration can also counter extreme wildfires more directly. While intact forests may become more diverse and less fire-prone with age, where forests are degraded, restoration can help to accelerate their return to a more natural condition.

Read more about the powers of forest restoration here.

Learn about wildfires and other effects of our climate emergency with UNEP’s Climate Action Note.

When we help heal nature, our actions offer hope for the future. Join #GenerationRestoration and be part of the solution.

When Pakistan hosts World Environment Day on June 5, it will honour Tahir Qureshi, the mangrove hero who dedicated his life to the conservation and restoration of mangroves and who sadly died in December 2020.

“He was a magnificent man. He understood the importance of mangroves in environmental conservation, he dedicated his life to them,” said Mahmood Akhtar Cheema, the country representative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a UNEP partner, “He literally planted millions of mangroves.”

Read more about this incredible mangrove hero and Pakistan’s push to restore its mangroves here.

World Environment Day marks the official launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a 10-year drive to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It will draw together political support, scientific research and financial muscle to scale up restoration and revive millions of hectares of land and marine ecosystems.

Mangroves are one of the most productive and diverse ecosystems on the planet. Find out how they store carbon, buffer storms and more here.

Mangroves are also central to Pakistan’s ambitious ‘Ten Billion Tree Tsunami’ drive to plant 10 billion trees by 2023. Millions, if not billions, of these trees, will be mangroves.

Mangroves are a great example of a nature-based solution for climate change and biodiversity loss. Read more about how nature can help heal our world with our live feed here.

Find out more about Pakistan’s role in hosting this year’s World Environment Day here.

Get involved by joining #GenerationRestoration here.

Since 1990, an estimated 420 million hectares of forest have been lost through deforestation and 10 million hectares continue to be lost each year. This is a huge problem for biodiversity but also for humans.

That’s because deforestation has been linked to outbreaks of vector-borne diseases, like malaria, and zoonoses such as COVID-19 and Ebola. By encroaching on wild spaces, we are reducing the natural barriers between the human and natural world, making it easier for diseases to jump between species.

Now the world is waking up to these risks. At the Leaders Summit on Climate in April, a new public-private initiative to provide results-based finance to countries committed to protecting their tropical forests was launched.

The LEAF (Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance) Coalition aims to unlock at least $1 billion in financing in one of the largest-ever public-private efforts to protect tropical forests and the billions of people who depend on them.

The United States, Norway and the United Kingdom have joined the initiative alongside private companies including Amazon, Airbnb, Bayer, Boston Consulting Group, GSK, McKinsey, Nestlé, Salesforce, and Unilever.

“Ending forest loss by 2030 is critical to addressing every environmental challenge we face, from climate change and biodiversity loss, to the pollution crisis. But for this to happen we need to put the right price on carbon because we know that when pollution is taxed, industries shift,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP’s Executive Director.

Humanity is not outside of nature; it is part of it. We need to recreate a balanced relationship with the ecosystems that sustain us. That’s what the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is all about and it launches officially on World Environment Day on June 5.

Halting deforestation globally, and restoring forests and other ecosystems is critical to reaching a net-zero emissions world by 2050.

Keep up-to-date with news on biodiversity with UNEP’s special feed here.

Find out how you can help and join #GenerationRestoration here

Humans have failed nature in the past but the UN Biodiversity Conference, rescheduled to take place in October in China, offers an opportunity to repair the damage done and ensure we take better care of the natural systems that sustain all life on this planet.

The Conference, known as COP15, will be the biggest biodiversity summit in a decade and aims to agree on a new set of goals for nature through the Convention on Biological Diversity post-2020 framework process.

Our track record is disappointing. Humans have altered 75 per cent of the terrestrial surface and 66 per cent of marine areas. Around 1 million out of 7.8 million species face extinction in what some scientists are calling the sixth mass species extinction.

“Again, we have not done enough. In 2010, we agreed on a series of biodiversity targets to be reached by 2020. We met none of them. The bottom line is that we cannot survive without nature and biodiversity. We cannot grow food, regulate the climate, filter water and so much more without it,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP’s Executive Director in a speech for Earth Day.

In the lead up to the Biodiversity Conference, UNEP is highlighting updates from around the United Nations System, from partners and from others helping to draw attention to the fact that the future of humanity depends on action now.

Read more from UNEP’s Inger Andersen here.

Stay up-to-date with all the news with UNEP’s biodiversity feed here.

Learn more about the crisis facing nature in the Global Biodiversity Outlook 5.

Play your part and join #GenerationRestoration here

Haiti is home to an incredible array of unique species and sadly many of these, like the tiny Macaya breast-spot frog, are under threat, mainly because of deforestation. But despite its struggles with poverty and natural disasters, the Caribbean island nation is fighting back, restoring forests, mangroves and beaches with the support of local communities.

Since 1968, the government has established 26 protected areas that today represent nearly 7 per cent of the country’s land and 1.5 per cent of its waters. UNEP is also supporting efforts to restore degraded mangroves and create livelihoods in agroforestry, beekeeping, cashew processing, aquaculture and sustainable fishing.

And this restoration drive does not stop at Haiti’s borders. The country has joined Cuba and the Dominican Republic as part of the Caribbean Biological Corridor initiative, which strives for ecosystem connectivity across countries.

Throughout the region, there is growing awareness of the need to protect nature. In February, ministers of environment of Latin America and the Caribbean signed the Bridgetown Declaration, in which they called for environmental issues to be placed at the heart of COVID-19 recovery strategies.

Find out more about the amazing powers of mangrove restoration here.

See how you can help heal the planet by checking out the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a 10-year drive to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It launches officially on World Environment Day, June 5.

We need all hands on deck to heal our planet and ensure our own survival. Why not join #GenerationRestoration here today?

Do you want to be part of a global movement of young agents for change? If so, the YOUth Reconnecting with Nature webinar is for you.

Ahead of the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration on World Environment Day on June 5, this webinar aims to raise awareness about this 10-year drive to heal our planet, and inspire young people to join the #GenerationRestoration movement.

Organised by the UNEP Brussels Office, the Food and Agricultural Organization’s Liaison Office in Brussels and Youth & Environment Europe, the webinar will include a presentation of the GEO-6 for Youth Report, a full interactive e-publication that shows how youth have the power to bring about transformative change if they act now.

Check out this video to learn more about the Report.

Speakers at the webinar will include Lefteris Arapakis, UNEP Young Champion of the Earth for Europe. Read more about how he founded Greece’s first professional fishing school to teach fishers to be more eco-friendly and help collect discarded plastic in the Mediterranean.

Interested? Here are the details:

When: 17 May from 2.30 pm -- 4 pm CET, Brussels.

Did you miss the webinar? View the recording here and here. For more visuals, take a look at the presentation slides and web story.

If you’re already feeling inspired? Sign up to #GenerationRestoration here.

The GEO-6 for Youth Report is written by youth for youth to inform, engage, educate, and lead young people towards environmental action. Check it out here.

And if you are already a #GenerationRestoration hero, check out the #GenerationRestoration Youth Challenge, a global call for youth-led solutions to conserve and restore ecosystems. You can apply here.

For humans, national borders define limits. But for birds, animals and marine wildlife, national borders do not exist. So when we seek to protect these species, we need to see the world as they do.

That’s just what the Caribbean Biological Corridor aims to do by protecting and restoring the marine and terrestrial ecosystems of the Greater Antilles and ensuring ecological connectivity between the islands.

This initiative -- integrated by Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Puerto Rico -- helps communities that depend on ecosystems to develop sustainable productive activities that improve their quality of life.

The Caribbean islands have one of the highest concentrations of biodiversity in the world and the welfare of islanders is highly dependent on the sustainable management of ecosystems and their services. But terrestrial ecosystems are under threat from human activity, aggravated by high population density, agriculture expansion, mining and poverty.

Preserving and restoring biodiversity is necessary for the survival of the human species and that is why the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which launches officially on World Environment Day on June 5, is so critical.

Restoration, which launches officially on World Environment Day on June 5, is so critical.

Read more about the Caribbean Biological Corridor here.

Join #GenerationRestoration here and find out how you can play your part.

Despite the quickening pace of ecosystem destruction, only 3 per cent of COVID-19 recovery spending in 2020 went towards supporting natural capital. That means we risk missing this once-in-a-generation chance to make planet-friendly investments—and save the Earth from a looming environmental catastrophe.

Doreen Robinson, chief of wildlife at UNEP, says that it’s time for a system-wide transformation and a complete recalibration of our relationship with nature because biodiversity is the foundation for all life on earth.

For example, more than half of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) is dependent on nature while three-quarters of all food crop types – including fruits and vegetables and some of the most important cash crops, like coffee and almonds – require animal pollination. About half of the global population relies mainly on natural medicines and most of the drugs used to treat cancer are either natural or modelled after nature.

Check out this interview to understand why we need to protect our precious biodiversity and how we can go about it.

Two decades ago, a group of conservationists created wetlands on what used to be an illegal dump along the northeastern shore of Manhattan. But rapid erosion, a byproduct of climate change, is threatening to wash them away and so the New York Restoration Project has had to step in again. They came up with a clever solution.

“We could install a reef that would help us rebuild the wetlands that could turn around this erosion and prevent us from losing the park,” said Jason Smith, from the Restoration Project.

The group took inspiration from the complex shape of an oyster reef, recreating the structure to allow them to stabilize the situation and focus on marsh creation.

“Acre per acre, wetlands are better than forests at fighting climate change,” Smith said. “In this case, we are literally restoring what was probably here 400 years ago.”

The New York project offers a perfect example of what needs to be done during the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a 10-year push to revive the natural world that officially launches on World Environment Day on June 5.

Led by UNEP and the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Decade is designed to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It will draw together political support, scientific research and financial muscle to scale up restoration and revive millions of hectares of land and marine ecosystems.

Sign up to join #GenerationRestoration here

Check out the Ecosystem Restoration Playbook for some practical ideas on healing the planet.

And find out more about the New York Restoration Project here

Did you know that restoring 350 million hectares of degraded land between now and 2030 could generate USD 9 trillion in ecosystem services and take an additional 13-26 gigatons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere?

A restoration economy would also create millions of green jobs and enhance humanity’s resilience to future shocks and stresses, say experts. If you revitalize farmlands, grasslands, forests, wetlands and peatlands, it rebuilds their ability to store carbon and can also protect habitat for biodiversity, build soil fertility, reduce water scarcity and help protect the world from zoonotic diseases, like COVID-19.

So it’s good news that countries have committed to restoring up to 1 billion hectares of land -- an area roughly the size of China -- according to a study released last year by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

The study found that 115 countries have made commitments to restore land under at least one of three major international environmental conventions – the Land Degradation Neutrality targets of the Sustainable Development Goals, Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Climate Agreement and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans – along with the Bonn Challenge, an effort to restore degraded and deforested lands.

Read more about this global drive to restore land here.

Check out more stories on the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration here.