Looking to help restore the natural world? Here’s your guide
Food, water, medicine, energy: the planet’s ecosystems provide the essentials of life, so long as they’re taken care of.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t been happening. During the last several decades, human development has pushed many of the world’s forests, savannahs and other natural systems to the brink of collapse.
To counteract that decline, the United Nations Environment Programme and several partners are launching a practical guide to restoring ecosystems.
- It provides tips to individuals, communities, businesses and government agencies, highlighting how they can revive the natural spaces around them.
- The guide comes just ahead of the launch of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a global drive to halt the degradation of land and oceans, protect biodiversity, and rebuild ecosystems.
- The practical guide contains pointers on how people can design their own restoration project, clean up their town, and green their home, business or school.
- It also outlines how citizens can halt the purchase of unsustainable products and shift towards plant-based diets, which have less impact on the environment.
- Finally, the guide showcases ways for people to hold public discussions about the value of ecosystems, and covers how they can stage online campaigns to draw attention to climate change and nature loss.
Along with those pointers, the document features an overview of the main ecosystem types, from forests and farmlands to rivers and coasts. It lists the benefits they provide, some of the biggest threats they face, and outlines ways in which they can be restored.
People and the planet are only as healthy as the ecosystems we all depend on. Bringing degraded ecosystems back to life – for example by planting trees, cleaning up riverbanks, or simply giving nature space to recover – increases their benefits to society and biodiversity. Without reviving ecosystems, we cannot achieve the Sustainable Development Goals or the Paris Climate Agreement. But ecosystems are also complex and highly varied, and their restoration needs careful planning and patient implementation.
Designed for all interested individuals and stakeholder groups, the guide outlines three pathways to getting involved in ecosystem restoration during the UN Decade and beyond:
- Taking action such as starting or support an on-the-ground restoration project
- Making smart choices like buying only sustainable products and changing diets
- Raising your voice in support of ecosystem conservation and restoration
The 21-page guide describes approaches to restoring eight key types of ecosystem – forests, farmlands, grassland and savannahs, rivers and lakes, oceans and coasts, towns and cities, peatlands, and mountains.
It also lays out how all parts of society – from individuals and community groups to businesses and governments – can become part of #GenerationRestoration, a global movement to restore ecosystems everywhere for the good of people and nature.
Further Resources
- Download The Ecosystem Restoration Playbook
- Background: The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration
- World Environment Day 2021
