Ecosystem restoration, reviving hope.
By: Thuận Sarzynski
Tags: Climate Change, Environment, Science, Sustainability, Future

Photo by Nikola Jovanovic on Unsplash

Land degradation is a worldwide issue affecting more than 3.2 billion. When the land is degraded through soil erosion, salinization or pollution, it loses its wildlife and its ecosystem services.

In the future, it will be important to rehabilitate degraded landscapes and seascape to restore their productivity. Moreover, land restoration is especially important to mitigate climate change as forests, coral reefs and wetlands can store a huge quantity of carbon.

As young people are taking the streets to call for climate action and asking adults to join the next global climate strike in September, a momentum is taking shape and open an opportunity to push governments to act against climate change.

“Now that people are aware of the existential threat of climate change, we must give them solutions”

People have a lot of energy and are eager to change the status quo, but how do we channel this energy to have the biggest impact? That is the question asked by Tim Christophersen, focal point for the UN decade project for land restoration. In a webinar last week on land restoration, he stressed that everybody has a role to play in this mass movement but not everybody knows what to do. For example, people can plant the wrong trees at a bad time, bad place and the tree can die, and once a farmer experience failure, he will never plant a tree again.

Tim Christophersen highlighted that “the momentum comes after many years of work in land restoration, and that now we have a large knowledge about terrestrial ecosystem restoration but also marine ecosystem restoration like mangroves and coral reefs. Now that people are aware of the existential threat of climate change, we must give them solutions and shift negative views to the opportunities we have”.

“inspiring action by measuring the potential of land restoration to stop climate change”

Thomas Crowther and Jean Francois Bastin, two researchers from the university ETH Zurich explained the goal of their research: “inspiring action by measuring the potential of land restoration to stop climate change”. With such measure, people can understand the size of the problem and how they can contribute to solve it. At the webinar organized by the Global Landscape Forum, Thomas Crowther gave an interesting example: “there are 300 extra gigaton of CO2 in the atmosphere, this is the size of the problem. If everybody stops to eat meat, it is 66 gigaton which will not be emitted”.

The two researchers did the same kind of calculation for land restoration around the globe using geospatial and ecological data. They have mapped how much tree can grow in each part of the world. The model they developed was based on the biophysical data of protected areas. Then, they extrapolated to all the globe to see how much trees could grow around the globe. This model finally gave information about the potential of land restoration to reduce climate change.

When everybody thinks about geoengineering and technological solutions, people forget that natural solutions are also an option. According to the results of the research which will be published next month in Science, Jean Francois Bastin affirms that ecosystem restoration will be the first climate solution in the world.

“…because planting trees is not the only way to restore a land”

To uncover the potential of land restoration, there are many challenges to overcome. Mathilde Iweins, an expert of ecosystem services and local finance at the FAO, listed 7 challenges to widely implement land restoration.

First, many countries lack of coordination between their stakeholders within governments and ministries. Planning must be more integrative and in agreement with the people doing restoration otherwise new infrastructure may be built on a restored area.

Second, land tenure issues must be solved, and farmers should receive land titles otherwise they will not be motivated to care and restore the land.

Third, trainings about new types of land restoration must be created and shared because planting trees is not the only way to restore a land.

Forth, restoration must be linked to livelihood so people can see the benefits they can receive through land restoration.

Fifth, financial partnership must be created as the public sector cannot tackle the problem by itself. The private sector must be involved and see the economic benefits of land restoration.

Sixth, biophysical and social effect of land restoration must be monitored, evaluated and linked to a cost-benefit analysis. Such analysis will show investors the benefits to restore degraded land.

Lastly, restoration does not happen fast, and time will be needed. In a system where international donors expect results after 4 years; restoration project does not have enough time.

Fortunately, restoration projects are already ongoing and international donors have already invested 50 million USD to start a dozen of projects in 10 countries. These projects which were developed in the same way, are part of an initiative of global knowledge sharing and capacity building. All these projects use the same monitoring and evaluation methods as well as the same set of biophysical and social indicators. Thanks to that, these projects are generating comparable data about their benefits and challenges so we can improve the implementation and financing of future projects.

“it is a crucial and cheap tool we can use to solve climate change”

There is a lot to be learnt as there is no golden bullet, and land restoration is a constant experimentation. Countries, especially in the global south, will need assistance to carry on large-scale restoration projects. They will have to learn how to use geospatial data and online platforms to find the suitable land to restore. If we can manage all the challenges and harness the potential of land restoration, it is a crucial and cheap tool we can use to solve climate change.