#restorative activities

[worldecologyday]

Principle 9 - Ecosystem Restoration includes monitoring, evaluation and adaptative management throughout and beyond the project or programme.

The monitoring of biodiversity, ecosystem health and integrity, and human well-being responses to restoration should be undertaken to determine whether objectives and goals are being met. For monitoring to be effective, it should begin at the inception of the project, programme or initiative, to allow baseline measurements of relevant site- and landscape- or seascape-level indicators to be taken and the assessment of the direction and magnitude of change over time. Different methodological approaches (from statistically rigorous to less formal) can be valuable for understanding patterns and processes of change. The engagement of stakeholders in monitoring can promote social learning, capacity development and communication among stakeholder groups and communities of practice, at local, national and global scales. Because restoration is a long-term endeavour and, therefore, changing conditions are inevitable, adaptive management – the iterative process of monitoring, evaluating, reflecting and adapting activities and approaches as needed – allows identification of unanticipated (positive and negative) outcomes and improvement of future actions. Monitoring should continue beyond the lifetime of the project, programme or initiative to capture medium- and longer-term impacts.

[worldecologyday]

Principle 10 - Ecosystem restoration is enabled by policies and measures that promote its long-term progress, fostering replication and scaling-up.

Ensuring an enabling policy environment, including through intersectoral policy coordination, is important for achieving restoration objectives and goals over the long term. To this end, all relevant governance instruments (laws, regulations, policies, strategies and plans) should be mapped, adapted where appropriate, and integrated in the planning and implementation of projects, programmes and initiatives. In addition, maximizing long-term net gain from restorative activities requires: coordinating actions among institutions, sectors and stakeholders, through a well-functioning governance system; fostering local, national and international political commitment and transboundary agreements; providing capacity-development opportunities to empower the people, organizations, institutions and networks involved in restoration; mainstreaming effective practices to have broad influence and allow replication; identifying, mobilizing and maintaining adequate funding (from government, the private sector, international organizations, or other sources) to complete all phases of the process; developing income mechanisms (e.g. through sustainable production, ecotourism, payment for ecosystem services and other sustainable uses of natural resources) that do not compromise the integrity of the restoration process and support its financial viability; and protecting the security of stakeholders and right holders, especially in areas of political conflict or conflict over natural resources. Likewise, promoting and replicating successful ecosystem restoration activities and approaches will facilitate and influence the design of laws, policies and measures – at local, national and global levels – to help prevent, halt and reverse ecosystem degradation.

[worldecologyday]

Creating a shared vision of ecosystem restoration.

Aware of the critical need to halt, prevent and reverse ecosystem degradation, and to effectively restore degraded terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems across the globe, through Resolution 73/284, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2021–2030 as the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (hereafter the “UN Decade”). To support the implementation of the UN Decade and help achieve its goals, there is a need for a shared vision of ecosystem restoration, defined as “the process of halting and reversing degradation, resulting in improved ecosystem services and recovered biodiversity. Ecosystem restoration encompasses a wide continuum of practices, depending on local conditions and societal choice”. A key step in is to creating a shared vision of ecosystem restoration adopt principles that underpin the full set of ecosystem restoration activities in support of the UN Decade Strategy. Although principles for specific types of restorative activities – such as ecological restoration and forest and landscape restoration, already have been published, there is a need for principles to underpin all of the restorative activities that are part of the continuum of ecosystem restoration defined by the UN Decade, and which are applicable across all sectors, biomes and regions.