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Imagine a world where, with all the developments we enjoy, our land also thrives and provides for everyone. Food. Jobs. Livelihoods. Communities. Landscapes.

Such a world is possible, and the vision driving the leaders at both global and local levels to restore as much degraded as possible, in a rapidly changing world. Commitments to restore up to one billion hectares of land by 2030 date to 2010.

Two new commitments have been added since, in 2020 by the G20 countries, and in 2022 under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

And yet, according to a study released last month by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), between 2015 and 2019, the world lost over 100 million hectares of healthy land each year. That is an area twice the size of Greenland!

The loss of productive land is a slow, steady but invisible process. And while the trend is alarming scientists and policy makers, it is quietly destabilizing markets, communities and ecosystems.

At the current pace of land degradation, the international community will need to restore at least 1.5 billion hectares of land by 2030. But to restore more land than that which is degraded requires a large scale approach.

Land restoration is a new solution, which means that neither policy makers nor markets have the tools required to take it to scale. And with land facing multiple threats from rising temperatures, frequent droughts, hurricanes and flashfloods, scaling up land restoration is not an option.

A high-level event at COP28 will bring countries, organizations and experts together to share policies that promote the best practices and encourage large-scale restoration efforts, in particular.

Protecting healthy land and recovering it where it is not producing optimally is more than an environment challenge. It is a bold step in strengthening the foundation on which life and our livelihoods are built.

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