Ambition of governments and companies to restore degraded and deforested lands continues to grow, with 12.9 million hectares in new pledges added to the Bonn Challenge since 2017 for a total area of 168.9 million hectares in pledges.
While evidence of progress aggregated at a large scale remains a challenge, a sample of five jurisdictions shows that over 13 million hectares are under restoration, which represents 41 percent of their aggregated pledges.
With the 2020 target year approaching, countries and organizations are increasing their focus on measuring progress of ongoing efforts. While countries are adopting new policy arrangements and strengthening capacities for bringing degraded forests and land into restoration programs, measuring progress on the implementation of pledges remains a challenge.
Of 165 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) who submitted Nationally Determined Contributions as of 2017, 49 stated quantified mitigation and/or adaptation targets aligned with the forest landscape restoration approach, estimated to cover 57 million hectares. Other mitigation and adaptation activities in the NDCs point to an additional 57 million hectares of planned actions for forest landscape restoration. These measures would double the total mitigation and adaptation potential of forests and land in NDCs to 114 million hectares.
The Forest Declaration Assessment and the Forest Declaration Platform have been supported over the years by the Climate and Land Use Alliance, the Good Energies Foundation, the Bezos Earth Fund, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) of Germany, and the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), which supported this initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag.
This project is supported by the Climate and Land Use Alliance and the Good Energies Foundation. Research that contributed to this project is part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI). The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) supports this initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag.