Partnership with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is a call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, for the benefit of people and nature. It aims to halt the degradation of ecosystems, and restore them to achieve global goals. Only with healthy ecosystems can we enhance people’s livelihoods, counteract climate change, and stop the collapse of biodiversity.

The UN Decade runs from 2021 through to 2030, which is also the deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the timeline scientists have identified as the last chance to prevent catastrophic climate change.

The objectives of this initiative are:

to join efforts to collaborate and successfully implement restoration initiatives across the world;
promoting a global movement focussing on ecosystems restoration;
to develop legislative and policy frameworks to incentivise restoration;
to develop innovative financing mechanisms to fund operations on the ground;
to undertake social and natural science research on restoration in terrestrial, freshwater, estuarine as well as marine environments;
to monitor global progress on restoration;
to build the technical capacity of restoration practitioners globally.

The Convention on Wetlands is one of the global partners of the UN Decade on Restoration. The Convention recognizes that the restoration of the Earth’s wetlands must be a key priority for ensuring a sustainable future. The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration represents a distinct and timely opportunity to join efforts and make meaningful headway worldwide in preventing, halting, and reversing the degradation of our planet’s wetlands.

In the context of this partnership:

The Convention contributed to the review of the UN Decade’s strategy.
The Convention participates actively on the task force on best practices and the aquatic and transitional ecosystems’ monitoring and evaluation framework. These engagements informed the consideration of Sustainable Development Goal 6 indicator 6.6.1 “change in the extent of water-related ecosystems over time” for which the Convention is co-custodian, and various targets of the Convention’s 4th Strategic Plan, as priority indicators of the UN Decade’s Monitoring Framework.

On the occasion of the launch of the UN Decade on Restoration, the Convention has produced three fact sheets to assist restoration efforts by Contracting Parties, policy makers and practitioners.

Wetlands restoration: unlocking the untapped potential of the Earth’s most valuable ecosystem
Realizing the full potential of marine and coastal wetlands: why their restoration matters
Restoring drained peatlands: now an environmental imperative

These materials highlight the critical role wetlands play in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.