New research aims to transform how forest restoration programmes are costed

Protecting and restoring the world’s forests is a fundamental part of what we need to do in the fight against climate change – but the world is in danger of underestimating the cost and potentially setting projects up for failure.

Increasing evidence shows that many large forest restoration programmes are vastly under-budgeted, leading to overestimations of the area of forest potentially restored[1] and a dramatically increased risk of failure. If this happens many forest restoration projects may not deliver the critical outcomes needed to help safeguard the planet and our future.

Trillion Trees, a joint venture between BirdLife International, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and WWF focused on protecting and restoring the world’s forests, is tackling this issue through new research to establish a realistic, experienced-based calculation of the investment needed to deliver high-quality, sustainable forest restoration, grounded in globally-accepted forest and landscape restoration principles.