Land Restoration: Addressing Land Degradation Neutrality and Scaling up Successes through Leadership, Action and Finance

As the world faces the urgent need to restore 1.5 billion hectares of degraded land by 2030 to achieve land degradation neutrality, the global commitments made so far fall short, with only one billion hectares pledged. The UNCCD’s Land Degradation Neutrality Framework has garnered nearly half of these commitments.

In the context of enhancing synergies between biodiversity, climate, and land management, this event will highlight the essential role of land restoration in bridging the gap between biodiversity loss and climate change. Effective land conservation, sustainable use and restoration are central to achieving multiple global objectives, including increasing carbon capture, protecting ecosystem services and reducing the impacts of climate-related disasters.

Ultimately, restoring and sustainably managing land is key to accelerating progress toward all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By optimizing land use and management, we can contribute to land, climate and biodiversity targets, close the food gap and improve human health and well-being, while ensuring the resilience and productivity of our ecosystems for future generations.The event on Land restoration: Addressing Land Degradation Neutrality and Scaling up Successes through Leadership, Action and Finance aims to highlight the role of land restoration in achieving global targets on land, climate and biodiversity by showcasing initiatives and success stories from around the globe to demonstrate how the scaling of restoration ambitions can be achieved.

The event will:

1. Highlight synergies and potential of land restoration to achieve land, climate and biodiversity targets by showcasing flagship initiatives from various landscapes, ecosystems and countries, including the UN Decade Flagships and Saudi Green Initiative.
2. Demonstrate approaches to scale up ambition and finance to restore 1.5 billion hectares by 2030.
3. Raise awareness about the role of local action for ecosystem restoration  and transformative action at landscape level through various technical options and partnerships.