After a challenging week, delegates successfully adopted a declaration signalling high-level commitment to forests, and an omnibus resolution that reviewed the effectiveness of the International Arrangement on Forests and set the mandate for specific future actions to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation.

The need to assess and (re)design restoration plans, link them to finance, and upscale implementation was the focus of a side event that explored the seven-year-old Forest Ecosystem Restoration Initiative. 

A bold initiative was announced at a COP 27 side event: UN-REDD and the Green Gigaton Challenge seek to mobilize funding to achieve the crucial milestone of one gigaton of annual emissions reductions from forests by 2025, and annually after that. One gigaton is the equivalent of removing 80% of cars from roads in the United States.

Participants at the 26th Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry highlighted evidence of recent progress in conserving or restoring forests, and the need for integrating agriculture and forestry, given that “forest restoration” is only one aspect of a more comprehensive “land restoration,” and that agroforestry and agroecology are a necessary part of the future, and growing in importance.