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The Government of Malawi and the Association of Guatemalan Private Natural Reserves have committed to restoring a total of 4.54 million hectares of degraded land as part of the Bonn Challenge initiative.
The announcements bring the total of Bonn Challenge pledges to just over 113 million hectares committed by 36 governments, organisations and companies – exceeding the 100 million hectare milestone just five years after its launch and bringing the 150 million target within reach.
‘We have passed the ‘magic’ 100 million hectare line. This is truly a remarkable achievement, and within only five years. We must celebrate those who have shown leadership on restoration and continue to attract more and diverse partners as well as developing scalable restoration investment opportunities.’
RITA SCHWARZELÜHR-SUTTER
Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), Germany
The Bonn Challenge is a global effort to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2020, and 350 million hectares by 2030. The initiative was launched in 2011 by Germany and IUCN, and endorsed and extended by the UN Climate Summit in 2014.
‘The IUCN Congress has driven home the urgency of acting on environmental issues and the potential of using nature as a tool to achieve sustainable development. Restoring 4.5 million hectares of degraded land will set Malawi on the path to a climate-smart future.’
DR CLEMENT CHILIMA
Director of Forestry, Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining, Malawi
Achieving the 350 million hectare goal could generate $170 billion per year in net benefits from watershed protection, improved crop yields and forest products, and could sequester up to 1.7 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent annually.
‘This exciting news is evidence that forest landscape restoration is increasingly looked to as an avenue to achieving the ambitions of the 2015 agreements.
‘We’ve watched the Bonn Challenge initiative transform from a global ambition to a powerful movement driven by governments, business leaders and local communities.
‘Over the next four years, we will be working with our partners to embed forest landscape restoration into national priorities, achieve restoration at scale and deliver real results to the communities and individuals living in these landscapes.’
Inger Andersen
Director general, IUCN
The commitments made by Malawi and RPNG follow other recent pledges announced by Panama (1 million hectares), Côte d’Ivoire (5 million hectares), the Central African Republic (3.5 million hectares), Guinea (2 million hectares) and an additional 1 million hectares from Ghana at regional ministerial roundtables held in Kigali and Panama in July and August 2016.
These roundtables are part of a series of high-level meetings to accelerate action on forest landscape restoration (FLR) in support of the Bonn Challenge. The Kigali roundtable provided a platform for the launch of the Kigali Declaration which – with an increasing list of signatories – is becoming a testament to the Pan-African ministerial support for the Bonn Challenge.
Click here to view IUCN profiles of countries with existing domestic restoration targets.
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