The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 was proclaimed to address the critical need to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of all types of ecosystems, with FAO and UNEP as the leading agencies.
A strategy and action plan have been developed to guide its implementation which states its vision and barriers, as well as the pathways to overcome them. Although countries have made ambitious commitments that support progress on the implementation of the UN Decade, ensuring that ecosystem restoration efforts are undertaken or upscaled in an effective way, is key to meaningfully achieving those commitments. Therefore, the Decade launched a first call for World Restoration Flagships in January 2022 to give visibility to restoration actions on the ground that embody the ten principles for ecosystem restoration, and to inspire others to undertake or accelerate effective restoration at a significant scale.
The ten selected flagships were announced in December 2022 at the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The webinar will then provide an overview of the background and objectives of the call, the selection process, the ten flagships awarded in 2022, and the perspectives for future calls.
Speakers Bio
Christophe Besacier is a Senior Forestry Officer and currently coordinating the Forest and Landscape Restoration Mechanism (FLRM) at FAO, where he is providing technical assistance and implementing restoration projects in more than 20 countries. He mobilized resources to scale-up restoration reaching a 40 million USD portfolio with multiple key financial partners. He is involved in major international restoration initiatives such as the Bonn Challenge, the GPFLR and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. From 2009 to 2014 he was in charge of Silva Mediterranea. From 2000 to 2009, he worked as regional advisor for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Sahel and the Congo Basin regions.
Vera Boerer is Senior Land and Water Officer, Land and Water Division at FAO. She is an agronomist, with a 30-year experience in extension, communication for development, school feeding, family farming and inclusive food systems for sustainable rural development, integrated landscape approaches. Her previous work with FAO includes Field projects on soil fertility in Bolivia and Tanzania (1989-1996); Extension, Education and Communication for Development Officer in the Subregional /Regional offices in Zimbabwe and Chile (1998-2004); Land and Water Officer in the Subregional Office for Mesoamerica in Panama (2009-2018).
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