A high-level international initiative for forest conservation, the Global Restoration Council, will be launched in Bonn today on the invitation of Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks. The council brings together luminaries from the fields of politics, civil society and business. Today is the council's first official meeting.
Minister Hendricks said: "Right now, globally, forest land area the size of two foot-ball fields is destroyed every minute. This deforestation rate is responsible for 10 to 15 percent of the world's CO2 emissions. This accelerates not only climate change, but also global species loss. Deforestation and woodland degradation cause a dramatic loss of natural resources that are vital to regional livelihoods. This results in poverty and hunger. To address this, we are supporting affected countries in their efforts to restore forest landscapes. We also support their sustainable development by doing so."
The Global Restoration Council is meeting on 20 and 21 July in Bad Godesberg, a neighbourhood in Bonn. The council is made up of internationally active, respected individuals well-known to the public. The former Swedish prime minister Göran Persson, the human rights and climate activist Bianca Jagger, and the representative of the African Green Belt Initiative Wanjira Mathai are among the members. The council will work together with the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration (GPFLR) to support the achievement of international targets for the restoration of destroyed forestland.
The choice of Bonn as a meeting place was not arbitrary. In 2011, the German Environment Ministry and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) launched the Bonn Challenge, an international initiative and action platform aiming at the restoration of 150 million hectares of degraded forest by 2020. The Bonn Challenge targets were expanded in 2014 by the United Nations' New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF). Additional initiatives such as AFR100 – the African Forest Restoration Initiative of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation (BMZ) – and the 20x20 Initiative in Central America support the targets of the Bonn Challenge at regional level.
Since 2011, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica along with many other countries have committed together to the restoration of almost 100 million hectares of forest. The German government is assisting partner countries in their efforts, for example with projects under its International Climate Initiative. Minister Hendricks said: "The Bonn Challenge brings together active partners from governments, businesses and organisations with the goal of restoring destroyed forest ecosystems in order to work against climate change and the decline of biological diversity. By improving ecosystem performance and services, forest restoration can help create a foundation for sustainable economic and social development."
Former prime minister of Sweden Göran Persson noted: "Around two billion hectares of the earth's land area are degraded – an area two times as large as China. This land cannot provide adequate resources to support life. With the voluntary activities of the members of the Global Restoration Council, who are investing their time and creativity in solving this problem, we hope to push forward the global restoration of forest landscapes and the return of their functional capacity."
Wanjira Mathai, representative of the Green Belt Initiative, said: "The restoration of ecosystems is necessary to combat climate change and preserve biological diversity. But it is also about people. Restoration of trees has safeguarded the existence of many small farms in Kenya – the trees that the farmers have planted and cared for provide extra fodder, shade and timber. The Global Restoration Council will make these success stories known far and wide in order to motivate international action."