(Slow) Progress in Global Forest Restoration

From 2000 to 2019, a total of 27 million hectares of forest area has been restored around the globe. While this progress is positive, the speed with which the world is implementing restoration, reforestation and restoration of these areas is far slower than had been hoped for, and committed to, with the 2011 Bonn Challenge.

Of the 150 million hectares which the 61 participating countries pledged to restore by 2020, only 18 percent has been realized. According to a new figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the largest share of this has been achieved in Latin America where 10.7 million hectares have been restored. As the FAO also notes in its latest State of the World's Forests report though, an estimated 10 million hectares were lost each year between 2015 and 2020 due to deforestation. While that is down from 16 million in the 1990s,tThis means that aside from a significant increase in the pace of forest recovery, massive reductions in deforestation are also essential if there is to be any kind of reversal of the situation.