A UN report published on Thursday, October 29, finds that 252 million hectares of degraded ecosystems across 149 countries are now being restored — the largest documented global restoration effort to date, creating more than one million green jobs. The report, Nature's Comeback, was co-published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and launched at a high-level event during the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17) in Yerevan.

Source: UNEP

Reuters reported the same finding on Thursday, noting that the area under restoration — 252 million hectares, or 973,000 square miles — remains way behind the global commitment to restore around one billion hectares by 2030. The report is the first-ever comprehensive global assessment of progress, published midway through the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030).

Source: Reuters via TradingView

Yaani: the money gap is the core of the report. Annual restoration finance must more than quadruple, from US$64 billion (yaani 6,400 crore dollars a year) to US$296 billion (yaani 29,600 crore dollars a year) by 2030. The report estimates that investment at that scale could generate up to 32 million new jobs worldwide by 2030.

Asia leads the documented area, water ecosystems lag

Across all ecosystems, Asia accounts for 192.2 million hectares of the documented restoration area, followed by Africa with 36.3 million, Europe with 9.1 million, North and Central America with 5.8 million, South America with 5.4 million and Oceania with 3.2 million hectares, the report said. China reports the largest terrestrial area under restoration, at 127.4 million hectares, with substantial areas also documented in Mongolia and Kazakhstan.

Progress is far weaker where degradation is fastest. Only 11 million hectares of freshwater ecosystems and 5.7 million hectares of marine and coastal ecosystems are documented as under restoration, and the report says action must rapidly increase with a particular focus on those systems. The largest estimated annual investment needs are in agroforestry (US$87 billion), restorative reforestation (US$52 billion), peatland restoration (US$44 billion) and seagrass restoration (US$28 billion).

Species are returning where restoration works

The report cites research indicating that restoring just 15 per cent of global priority areas could capture and store 30 per cent of the carbon dioxide increase since the Industrial Revolution and help avoid 60 per cent of species extinctions. Documented successes include the recovery of mountain gorillas in East Africa, jaguars in Brazil, snow leopards in Kyrgyzstan and Ganges River dolphins in India. Five initiatives in China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Italy and the United States were awarded UN World Restoration Flagship status at the launch.

"Today, we are witnessing the makings of one of the largest movements for nature in recorded history," said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen. "Yet, at the halfway point of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, we are still not restoring nature at the scale or speed required." FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said: "Five years into the UN Decade, the message is clear: restoration works." CBD Executive Secretary Astrid Schomaker added: "We cannot expect to fix nature with one hand while we destroy it with the other one."