Two Latin American nature restoration initiatives in the South Cone and Central America are among 10 that just received special recognition at the United Nations Biodiversity Summit in this Canadian city. Photo: Conicet
MONTREAL — Two Latin American nature restoration initiatives in the South Cone and Central America are among 10 that just received special recognition at the United Nations Biodiversity Summit being held in this Canadian city.
These are the Trinational Atlantic Forest Pact to restore this ecosystem in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay and the Central American Dry Corridor Initiative, which seeks to use traditional agricultural methods to build landscape productivity including its biodiversity.
The award was given to eight other projects in different parts of the world, which together are working to restore more than 68 million hectares of degraded land and create up to 15 million jobs.
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The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) addressed the recognition of the initiatives at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, said: “These Top 10 Global Restoration Flagship Initiatives are proof that political will, science and cross-border cooperation enable us all to achieve the goals of the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration”.
“Transforming our relationship with nature is key to reversing the triple planetary crisis of climate change, loss of natural resources and biodiversity, and pollution and waste,” Andersen added.
“Transforming our relationship with nature is key to reversing the triple planetary crisis of climate change, loss of natural resources and biodiversity, and pollution and waste”: Inger Andersen.
For Qu Dongyu, Director-General of FAO, “These emblematic initiatives inspire everyone to learn how to restore our ecosystems to achieve better production practices, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life for all, without leaving no one behind. “
The recognition puts the 10 outstanding initiatives in better conditions to receive international support and funding, which was highlighted at COP15.
The Dry Corridor initiative is based on the high vulnerability of ecosystems and the people living in them to climate change, particularly due to their exposure to unpredictable rainfall and heat waves.
As a result, 2019 was the fifth consecutive year of drought, leaving 1.2 million people in the subregion in need of food aid.
The project is working on agroforestry systems that integrate tree cover with crops such as coffee, cocoa and cardamom that increase soil fertility and water availability, in addition to supporting much of the original tropical forest’s biodiversity.
The goal of the initiative is to place 100,000 hectares in the restoration process and create 5,000 permanent jobs by 2030 in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.
The Trinational Atlantic Forest Pact distinguished itself as an initiative to restore this ecosystem, which covered a sizable portion of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay and was reduced to fragments after centuries of logging, agricultural expansion, and city building.
Hundreds of organizations are working to protect and restore forests across the three countries, with programs to create wildlife corridors for endangered species like the jaguar and golden lion tamarin, and to ensure water supplies for people and nature.
Likewise, to counteract the consequences of climate change, to develop resilience against it and thus create thousands of jobs. To date, 700,000 hectares of the 2030 target million have been restored and the focus is on the 2050 target of restoring a total of 15 million hectares.
The other eight winning initiatives include Abu Dhabi’s ocean restoration (reefs, mangroves and seagrass) and the Great Green Wall, which aims to restore 100 million hectares, sequester 250 million tons of carbon and create 10 million green jobs create in the Sahel.
The Sahel is the semi-arid strip crossing 11 African countries from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, lying between the Sahara and the forest zone in the center of the continent. On this occasion, the UN award particularly recognized the efforts in Burkina Faso and Niger.
Two collaborative initiatives between far-flung regions were recognized: the Alliance for Mountains, which supports recovery programs from its headquarters in Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Rwanda and Uganda, and the protection of marine spaces in the Comoros (Indian Ocean), St. Lucia (Caribbean) and Vanuatu (Pacific).
The rest are Ganga regeneration programs in India; the preservation of the Altyn-Dala steppe in Kazakhstan; mangrove conservation in Java, Indonesia; and the Shan Shui Initiative, which brings together 75 projects in China, from mining operations to coastal estuary restoration.
With information from IP
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