UN Calls for Intense Nature Restoration To Address Climate And Biodiversity Crisis
BY GLORIA USMAN, ABUJA – The United Nations has said that the world must deliver on its commitment to restore at least one billion degraded hectares of land in the next decade in order to tackle the triple threat of climate change, loss of nature and pollution confronting the world.
The UN made the call at the launch of its “Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 underway” Organised by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO).
The report states that if restoration is be fulfill, countries need to add similar commitments for oceans to achieve this.
The report, #GenerationRestoration: Ecosystem restoration for People, Nature and Climate, highlighted that humanity is using about 1.6 times the amount of services that nature can provide sustainably just as it revealed that conservation efforts alone are insufficient to prevent large-scale ecosystem collapse and biodiversity loss.
The report also states that Ecosystems requires urgent restoration which include farmlands, forests, grasslands and savannahs, mountains, peat lands, urban areas, freshwaters, and oceans, adding that communities living across almost two billion of degraded hectares of land include some of the world’s poorest and marginalised.
Executive Director, Inger Andersen, UNEP and FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, wrote; “We must all throw our weight behind a global restoration effort. Drawing on the latest scientific evidence, it sets out the crucial role played by ecosystems, from forests and farmland to rivers and oceans, and it charts the losses that result from a poor stewardship of the planet.”
“Degradation is already affecting the well-being of an estimated 3.2 billion people – that is 40 per cent of the world’s population. Every single year we lose ecosystem services worth more than 10 per cent of our global economic output, stressing that ‘massive gains await us’ by reversing these trends”.
Based on the report, Ecosystem restoration is the process of halting and overturning degradation, resulting in cleaner air and water, extreme weather mitigation, better human health, and recovered biodiversity, including improved pollination of plants. Restoration encompasses a wide continuum of practices, from reforestation to re-wetting peat lands and coral rehabilitation.
“It contributes to the realisation of multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including health, clean water, and peace and security, and to the objectives of the three ‘Rio Conventions’ on Climate, Biodiversity, and Desertification.
The report states that restoration must involve all stakeholders including individuals, businesses, associations, and governments. Crucially, it must respect the needs and rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and incorporate their knowledge, experience and capacities to ensure restoration plans are implemented and sustained.
