WHY A TASK FORCE?

Unsustainable land use and destruction of natural ecosystems have contributed to global land degradation, climate change and biodiversity loss. To prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2021–2030 as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (hereafter UN Decade).

All ecosystems, terrestrial and aquatic, have the potential to be restored. For the UN Decade, ecosystem restoration encompasses a wide continuum of activities that contribute to protecting intact ecosystems, avoid further degradation and repairing degraded ones. It means that restoration can happen in many ways and that it is not always possible – or desirable – to return an ecosystem to its original state. In that case, the goal is to optimize ecosystem functions and services, and to improve management practices and governance.

To support the implementation of the UN Decade, a FAO-led Task Force on Best Practices was established. This Task Force focuses on shaping the knowledge component of the UN Decade, including capacity development efforts and capitalization as well as sharing and dissemination of good practices for restoration in all ecosystems.

OUTPUTS

A roadmap was collaboratively developed around seven outputs:

• Output 1: Task Force is operational, with clear Terms of Reference and representatives from key technical organizations.
• Output 2: Ecosystems and geographies where knowledge capitalization will be focused at the first stage are prioritized.
• Output 3: Partners are identified, and ways to interact with them to share, collect or generate knowledge are agreed upon.
• Output 4: Capacity needs assessment is undertaken at global level for all stakeholders involved in ecosystem restoration.
• Output 5: Action plan on knowledge and learning is developed and approved by the task force, based on the results of the capacity needs assessment.
• Output 6: Terms of Reference for a short-list of flagship products that could be elaborated in the context of the UN Decade are developed.
• Output 7: Good practices are collected and / or capitalized according to pre-agreed formats, endorsed and made available through the UN Decade digital hub and other partners’ websites and resources.

MAIN ACHIEVEMENTS AND ONGOING EFFORTS

Output 1: Task Force is operational, with clear Terms of Reference and representatives from key technical organizations.

A group of more than 100 members from several dozens of global leading organizations in the field of capacity development and knowledge dissemination joined the Task Force on a voluntary basis to contribute to the achievement of the outputs. Members of the Task Force currently focus efforts on outputs 5 (Action plan on knowledge and learning), 6 (Terms of Reference for priority knowledge products and initiatives) and 7 (collection, capitalization and dissemination of good practices). The Task Force is also collaborating with other relevant efforts, including those of the UN Decade Task Forces on Monitoring, Science, Finance and Youth.

Output 4: Capacity needs assessment is undertaken at global level for all stakeholders involved in ecosystem restoration.

A global online survey was disseminated to identify what and whose “system-wide capacities” need to be enhanced to achieve the goals of the UN Decade and sustain its efforts beyond 2030. In particular, the assessment aimed to:

• provide a baseline of existing capacities across people, organizations, networks, partnerships and the enabling environment;
• help identify strengths, gaps, needs and barriers to achieving and sustaining global restoration goals at scale; and
• guide the UN Decade’s system-wide capacity development efforts by mainstreaming restoration capabilities into regional and national knowledge and learning action plans.

A summary report on the key findings of this assessment is available here.

Output 5: Action plan on knowledge and learning is developed and approved by the Task Force, based on the results of the capacity needs assessment.

The Capacity, Knowledge and Learning Action Plan for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration has been developed based on information gathered through three primary activities: i) the global capacity needs assessment (output 4) conducted in 2021; ii) a stocktaking of knowledge products and capacity-development initiatives conducted in the first half of 2022; and iii) extensive targeted consultations with different global and regional stakeholder groups from May to October 2022.

The document is divided into two main parts. Part 1 identifies gaps where knowledge products or capacity-development initiatives are needed across different stakeholder groups. Part 2 describes the terms of reference for eight key capacity- and knowledge-development initiatives (output 6), tailored to different target groups, that define the Capacity, Knowledge and Learning Action Plan for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. The publication can be consulted here.

Output 7: Good practices are collected and / or capitalized according to pre-agreed formats, endorsed and made available through the UN Decade digital hub and other partners’ websites and resources.

To effectively undertake and scale-up ecosystem restoration efforts, practitioners need to easily access good practices. To do so, the task force has been focused on:

1. Shaping guiding principles for ecosystem restoration: ten principles applicable to all sectors, biomes and regions were developed and published in the brochure “Principles for ecosystem restoration to guide the United Nations Decade 2021–2030”. To develop the publication, besides UN Decade Lead Agencies UNEP and FAO (the coordinator of the Task Force), the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Commission for Ecosystem Management (IUCN CEM) acted as main convenor with the collaboration of WWF, CIFOR-ICRAF, and Ecohealth Network.
2. Developing standards of practice to guide ecosystem restoration: following the partnership established with SER and IUCN CEM, these standards were elaborated in collaboration with 22 organizations to provide key recommendations for application of the ten principles of ecosystem restoration across the entire restoration process. The Standards are applicable to all types of ecosystems and the broad array of ecosystem restoration activities under the UN Decade.  These recommendations, if adopted by restoration implementers, can improve the benefits of restoration activities for nature and people. The Standards can be downloaded here.
3. Capitalizing and availing of existing good practices: A stock-taking of knowledge platforms that collect and disseminate validated good practices in different ecosystems was conducted. In close collaboration with the FAO-led Monitoring Task Force, a common search engine has been developed as a functionality of the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring (FERM) Platform. The common search engine brings together good practices on ecosystem restoration documented by four collaborating 
   platforms: the FERM Registry, LIFE GoProFor, Panorama - Solutions for a Healthy Planet, The World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT). Users can effectively search, filter, and access an extensive array of good restoration practices according to their specific needs. Access the tool here.
4. Collecting new practices: Preparation of the long-term process of collection of new practices during the UN Decade. Following close collaboration with the Monitoring Task Force, the process of documentation of good practices undertaken by the Task Force on Best Practices has been linked to the FERM Registry. It allows for registration of restoration initiatives and documentation of their respective good practices. Click here to register your restoration initiative and document good practices through the FERM Registry.
   Please find here the step by step guide on how to document good practices through the FERM Registry.