Pre-release
Proclamation
During the Bonn Challenge meeting in March 2018, El Salvador announced plans to propose a United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, aimed at boosting existing efforts to restore degraded ecosystems. El Salvador's leadership in ecosystem restoration emerged from its support for the Bonn Challenge, which aims to restore 350 million hectares of degraded ecosystems globally by 2030, and the approval of the New York Declaration on Forests.[7][8] As one of the six pilot countries of the Bonn Challenge, El Salvador has committed to restoring 1 million hectares, equivalent to half of the country's territory.[9].
71 countries supported the proposal in its presentation by the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources of El Salvador "Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (El Salvador), Lina Pohl"), at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2018.[10] On March 1, 2019, the UN General Assembly officially adopted the resolution declaring 2021-2030 the Decade of the UN Ecosystem Restoration.[11].
According to Minister Pohl, "ecosystem restoration promoted through this UN Decade adopts a multifunctional landscape approach, looking at the mosaic of interdependent land uses in which ecological, economic, social and development-based priorities can find convergence, balance and complementarity."[6][10].
Rationale
Pre-launch material suggests that the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration would focus on balancing ecological, social and development priorities in landscapes where different forms of land use interact, with the aim of fostering long-term resilience.[6].
An ecosystem includes all living organisms and their interaction with each other and their physical environment (such as soil, climate, atmosphere, and weather).[13] Each organism plays a key role and contributes to the health and productivity of the ecosystem as a whole. Ecosystems are interdependent and damage or imbalance can have devastating and far-reaching consequences.[14] Biodiversity underlies all ecosystem services, which are the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems, essential for health, survival and well-being.[15] These can be classified as provisioning services (food, fresh water, wood and fibre, and fuel),[16] regulatory services (climate modulation, diseases,[17] food supply and water purity) and cultural services (serving aesthetic, spiritual and educational needs).[18].
Human activities are affecting the ability of ecosystems to provide these goods and services.[19][20] Factors driving biodiversity loss and declining ecosystem functioning include climate change, deforestation, desertification and land degradation, freshwater decline, overexploitation, stratospheric ozone depletion, and anthropogenic pollution. The degradation of terrestrial and marine ecosystems adds to the threat of mass species extinction and has a negative impact on the well-being of some 3.2 billion people, costing around 10% of the annual global gross domestic product (c. $6.3 trillion) in losses of species and ecosystem services.[21] Degradation of agricultural lands and ecosystems reduces resilience to climate change, increasing the risk of catastrophic collapse in the face of climate change. rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns.[22] The benefits that future generations can derive from ecosystems will be greatly reduced unless these issues are addressed.[23].
"Ecosystem restoration") seeks to repair some of the damage caused to ecosystems and biodiversity. It seeks to assist the recovery of degraded, damaged and destroyed ecosystems, to recover ecological functionality and provide goods and services of value to humans.[24][25] The beneficial effects of ecosystem restoration include greater food and water security, contributing to the mitigation and adaptation to climate change, and managing the associated risks of conflict and migration.[22] Restoration for By 2030, 350 million hectares of degraded terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems could generate $9 trillion in ecosystem services and remove 13 to 26 gigatonnes of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.[26] The benefits gained from ecosystem generation exceed on average ten times the costs of the initial investment, while the cost of inaction is at least three times the cost of ecosystem restoration.
Opportunity and objectives
Around 2 billion hectares of degraded lands worldwide have the potential to undergo ecosystem restoration.[27] Most rehabilitation work could take the form of "mosaic restoration", in which forests are combined with protected areas, agriculture, water bodies and human settlements on a landscape-wide scale.[28].
Transformational restoration of ecosystems requires strong commitment and efforts from countries, the international community, civil society, the private sector and other actors. Achieving the Bonn Challenge goal of restoring at least 350 million hectares of degraded landscapes by 2030[6] could generate up to $9 trillion in net benefits and alleviate poverty in many rural communities.[11] The UN Decade aims to promote a concerted and holistic landscape-centered approach to ecosystem interdependence, human needs and biodiversity, to accelerate the progress needed to maintain and restore ecosystems.
The United Nations Decade for Ecosystem Restoration was established to:[6].
• - Build a common vision, prioritizing ecosystem restoration from the global to the local level to accelerate the reversal of ecosystem degradation.
• - Incorporate ecosystem restoration into policies and planning to address current development challenges due to land degradation, biodiversity loss and vulnerability to climate change.
• - Promote a holistic approach to achieving international commitments and national priorities through ecosystem and landscape restoration.
• - Enhance cooperation and resource mobilization to increase the flow of financial, technological resources, knowledge and capacity building to countries and jurisdictions working to meet national objectives and international commitments, including the Sustainable Development Goals, through ecosystem restoration.
• - Encourage partnerships and investments, promoting a resilient economy by increasing support for smallholder farmers' value generation from land use products and the potential to contribute to the restoration of ecosystems.
• - Promote cooperation between funders, governments, civil society and the private sector to help overcome barriers to scaling up resource-efficient production systems in partnership with ecosystem restoration.
• - Raise awareness about the importance of functional ecosystems for human well-being and productive activities, local development and the economic sustainability of society.
Links to other initiatives
Ecosystem restoration is recognized as a key component to achieving the objectives of existing international conventions and agreements. These include the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and, under it, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),[29] the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2020") and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets,[30] the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and its goal of degradation neutrality of land,[31] the Ramsar Convention and the United Nations Strategic Plan on Forests 2017-2030").[32].
Ecosystem restoration will contribute to all 17 Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG 15 (Life on land), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (Affordable and clean energy), SDG 12 (Responsible consumption and production), SDG 13 (Climate action), SDG 14 (Life below water) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).[29] Paragraph 27 of the Ministerial Declaration of the High-Level Political Forum on the SDGs held in July 2018 sets out commitments to achieve sustainable management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and substantially increase global afforestation and reforestation by 2020.[33].
Activities planned during the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration are also designed to contribute to the Bonn Challenge") which seeks to restore degraded and deforested lands. The United Nations Decade builds on regional restoration efforts, such as the 20x20 Initiative")[34] in Latin America, which aims to restore 20 million hectares of degraded lands by 2020;[35] and the African Forest Landscape Restoration AFR100"),[36] which aims to restore 100 million hectares of degraded lands by 2030.
Ecosystem Restoration Resolutions
Resolutions relevant to ecosystem restoration adopted during the UN Environmental Assemblies of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) include:
• - UNEP / EA.1 / L.08 Adaptation based on ecosystems.[37].
• - UNEP / EA.2 / L.24 Fight desertification, land degradation and drought and promote sustainable grazing and rangelands.[38].
• - UNEP / EA.3 / L.10 Address water pollution to protect and restore water-related ecosystems.[39].
The following resolutions approved during the fourth United Nations Environment Assembly, held between March 11 and 15, 2019, highlight the importance of ecosystem restoration:[40].
• - UNEP / EA.4 / L.11 Innovations on biological diversity and land degradation.
• - UNEP / EA.4 / L.19 Conservation and sustainable management of peatlands.
• - UNEP / EA.4 / L.14 Sustainable management of coral reefs.
• - UNEP / EA.4 / L.13 Sustainable management for global mangrove health.
• - This work contains a full translation derived from "UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration" from Wikipedia in English, specifically this version, published by its editors under the GNU Free Documentation License and the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
• - United Nations Decade for Ecosystem Restoration.
• - Forest and landscape restoration: the key to a sustainable future Archived June 24, 2021 at the Wayback Machine.
• - Assessment report on land degradation and restoration.
• - Global environmental outlook.