Earth Today | FAO moves to improve ecosystem restoration monitoring

THE FOOD and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has launched an initiative to improve monitoring and reporting on country efforts to restore ecosystems, as the world grapples with nature loss as one contributor to the triple planetary crisis involving climate change and pollution.

Now, with a contribution of seven million pounds from the United Kingdom, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Accelerating Innovative Monitoring of Nature Restoration (AIM4NatuRe) initiative is to support Indigenous Peoples to monitor the biocentric restoration of nature, described as “a holistic approach that prioritises the well-being of all living things in an ecosystem”.

In an April 29 news release, the FAO revealed that a pilot project will be carried out in Brazil and Peru with the entity’s Indigenous Peoples Unit.

“The pilot projects in Peru and Brazil focus on the knowledge and cosmovision of Indigenous Peoples present in their communities’ ecosystem restoration efforts. It will include a methodological manual and examples of successful cases,” it said.

The Peru project is to be implemented in collaboration with the government in the Southern Andean Corridor, located in the southern area of the country, specifically in the regions of Cusco, Apurímac and Arequipa.

In Brazil, implementation which began with the Xukuru People in 2024, in the Caatinga biome, is to be extended to territories restituted to Indigenous Peoples.

“AIM4NatuRe will provide a new dynamic input for global restoration efforts,” noted FAO Director-General QU Dongyu in the release.

“By providing countries with technical expertise and solutions, and ensuring they have the resources they need to monitor their progress accurately, we can ensure that our collective efforts translate restoration commitments into real and lasting impacts for people and the planet during this UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and beyond,” he added.

AIM4NatuRe leverages technology and data to improve nature restoration and builds on the success of the AIM4Forests programme, which itself uses advanced technology for forest monitoring and has reportedly trained people from 14 countries.

With AIM4NatuRE, which also sees the creation of a global dataset on nature restoration progress, countries will get support to build capacity and use the latest technology to monitor and report their progress towards target two of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims to restore at least 30 per cent of degraded ecosystems by 2030.

“Globally, around one billion hectares of land have been committed for restoration, with the potential to contribute one-third of the total climate mitigation needed to limit warming to below two degrees Celsius by 2030, while contributing to food security and livelihoods,” the release said.

“However, many countries lack the technical solutions and capacity to effectively track and report their progress in restoring degraded ecosystems. In a recent capacity needs assessment survey by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat, 80 per cent of countries responding said they were unable to collect data to report national restoration progress,” it added.

AIM4NatuRe is to help to solve that, with its prioritisation of data interoperability, including the setting up of “standardised data formats and protocols that facilitate the harmonisation and aggregation of data collected at national levels into a global reporting framework”.

– pwr.gleaner@gmail.com