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Global Reforestation Initiative

In September 2011 commitments were made to the GPFLR by governments, business leaders and environmental experts to work towards the restoration of 150 million hectares of lost landscapes by 2020. This ambitious but attainable target represents a giant step forward in the acceptance of landscape restoration as a means of meeting global and local challenges.

The Bonn Challenge, and is widely acknowledged as the largest reforestation initiative the world has ever seen.

The Bonn Challenge will make a significant contribution to the existing Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Target 15, which aims for the restoration of at least 15 percent of the world’s degraded ecosystems by 2020), and the UNFCCC REDD-Plus goal (to slow, halt and reverse forest cover and carbon loss.

The IUCN and GPFLR partners are working to help governments, landowners, corporations and non-governmental organizations define their commitments. Including: area to be restored; timescale (before and after the 2020 date); functions, purpose; and the type of activities.
Those who own or have the right to manage land pledged for restoration will be tracked and held to account by the GPFLR.
• Commitments will be announced at GPFLR events over the next 12 months. They will be made public on the GPFLR website and linked to the IUCN/Airbus Plant a Pledge campaign ‘counter’.
• Reaching the Bonn Challenge target will depend on the success of hundreds of landscape restoration projects around the world.

deforestation and climate change

Reforesting Degraded Land

Forest and landscape restoration (FLR) turns barren or degraded areas of land into healthy, fertile, working landscapes that can meet the needs of people and the natural environment, sustainably. Repairing ruined landscapes restores their ability to support people, wildlife and livelihoods, put back some of the world’s capacity to process greenhouse gases and pump an estimated US$ 84 billion (net) into the global economy.

Plant a Pledge is the public facing campaign designed by the IUCN and Airbus to build a significant groundswell of support, urging Governments, Businesses and Environmental experts to work together to restore lost landscapes around the world with the aim of meeting the Bonn Challenge – the biggest restoration initiative the world has ever seen.

We would encourage everybody to visit www.plantapledge.com, to pledge support. Your click will contribute to the upsurge of public pressure on governments to deliver on their promises – taking millions of people out of poverty, injecting billions into world economies and making the world a greener, more sustainable place.

The IUCN will use these signatories to ensure that governments put their pledges in writing – outlining specific promises about land areas, locations, timescales and methods of restoration.

The emission reductions gap is the estimated shortfall in climate mitigation action, once all current greenhouse gas reduction efforts and commitments are taken into account, required to avoid global temperature increases exceeding 2oC.

The Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration: The Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration (GPFLR) is a worldwide network that unites influential governments, major UN and non-governmental organisations, business and individuals with a common cause. The Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration (GPFLR) was launched in 2003 by IUCN, WWF and the Forestry Commission of Great Britain. Since then more than 25 governments and international and non-governmental organizations have joined.

The GPFLR builds support for restoration with decision-makers and opinion-formers at both local and international level, and influence legal, political and institutional frameworks to support FLR.

The GPFLR’s Learning Network is vital to the sharing of FLR experience from around the world, and to the achievement of milestones such as the Bonn Challenge target. That experience includes helping to bring about breakthrough projects and undertakings in settings as diverse as China, Rwanda, Indonesia, North Korea, Brazil and the US.

The Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration (GPFLR), together with the government of Germany, co-hosted the roundtable meeting in Bonn in September 2011 at which the Bonn Challenge target was agreed.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN): IUCN helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges. IUCN works on biodiversity, climate change, energy, human livelihoods and greening the world economy by supporting scientific research, managing field projects all over the world, and bringing governments, NGOs, the UN and companies together to develop policy, laws and best practice.

IUCN coordinates the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration (GPFLR), which, together with the government of Germany, co-hosted the roundtable meeting in Bonn in September 2011 at which the Bonn Challenge target was agreed.

climate change and deforestation

Sacred Seedlings is a global initiative to support forest conservationreforestationurban forestrycarbon capture, sustainable agriculture and wildlife conservation. Sustainable land management is critical to the survival of entire ecosystems. Sacred Seedlings is a charitable division of Crossbow Communications.

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Avatar Gary Chandler

Author: Gary Chandler

Gary Chandler is the founder and Executive Director of Sacred Seedlings.

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