This Unasylva issue aims at showcasing forest and landscape restoration (FLR) opportunities and recent developments rthat have the power to upscale restoration, in order to achieving the Bonn Challenge pledge and other national and international commitments (Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) Post-2020 Agenda, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Land Degradation Neutrality, Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)) and addressing the needs of the UN Decade 2021-2030 on Ecosystem Restoration.

The content adresses thematics of relevance to various audiences: i) flagship restoration initiatives that differ from the so-called “business-as-usual” as they channel more funds, better empower local stakeholders and provide enhanced technical assistance through partners’ coalitions; ii) technical advances that can spread FLR and have a huge potential to be mainstreamed for different reasons (low cost, adaptability, relevance to many ecosystems and contexts, ease of implementation…); iii) the enabling factors for restoration, i.e. coordination, policy environment, resources, knowledge and capacities, as these are the enabling conditions for action to take place on the ground.

Follow Forest and landscape restoration: enhancing synergies between the Rio conventions with contributions from UNCCD team S. Jauffret, B. Bodin, A. Vidal, J. Wong, L. Janishevski, H. Khiari and P. Lara

Potential of restoration to help combat desertification Under the UNCCD, achieving LDN requires keeping the land in balance by avoiding, reducing and reversing land degradation, as per the LDN approach and response hierarchy (Orr et al., 2017). In the LDN framework, complementary actions should be applied to avoid or reduce land degradation (through sustainable land management – SLM – and sustainable forest management – SFM) and to reverse land degradation (through restoration and rehabilitation) (Box 4). Most FLR interventions contribute to the implementation of SLM and SFM approaches at a large scale and help maintain ecosystem services (Orr et al., 2017).

The Global Mechanism of the UNCCD and its international partners developed the Land Degradation Neutrality Target Setting Programme (LDN-TSP) to support countries in establishing national voluntary targets for LDN. To date, 123 countries have participated in the LDN-TSP and more than 80 have established voluntary LDN targets. The LDN approach encourages countries to pursue an optimal mix of measures designed to avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation to achieve a state of no net loss of healthy and productive land across sectors and relevant policies, including biodiversity conservation (Global Mechanism of the UNCCD and CBD, 2019), climate change (Global Mechanism of the UNCCD and UNFCCC, in prep.[a]), and land-use planning (Global Mechanism of the UNCCD and UNFCCC, in prep.[b]). Moving forward towards the implementation of the LDN targets, the Global Mechanism has started assisting countries to develop gender-responsive transformative projects and programmes, including FLR interventions, by providing tailored support in the early stages of project preparation.

All three Rio conventions – through the Aichi Biodiversity Targets (soon to be replaced by the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework), the Warsaw Framework for REDD+ and actions in the AFOLU sector, and LDN – encourage the restoration of forests and other ecosystems. As a concept that relates to the objectives of all three conventions, FLR has the potential to contribute to all existing targets and mechanisms and to increase ambition under the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, the Paris Agreement on climate change and the UNCCD 2018–2030 Strategic Framework. The development of FLR pledges, plans and programmes is an opportunity to consider the choice and location of restoration interventions to ensure that they contribute to the achievement of all three Rio conventions in a balanced and integrated manner, thereby promoting synergies in the implementation of associated interventions. Voluntary pledges on FLR such as the Bonn Challenge can also be capitalized on and integrated as potential contributions to national targets under the Rio conventions. These contributions could also be duly reported so that the identification of remaining gaps in national actions to reach global goals are as accurate as possible