The world has committed to restoring at least one billion hectares of degraded land and coasts by 2030 — an area roughly the size of China. That target sits at the heart of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030), co-led by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), whose stated aim is to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. For anyone who wants in, the Decade’s Ecosystem Restoration Hub offers three ways through the door.
FAKTA
- The goal: at least 1 billion hectares of degraded ecosystems restored by 2030, under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030).
- Co-led by: UNEP and FAO, under the banner #GenerationRestoration.
- The hub: the Ecosystem Restoration Hub connects people, organisations and initiatives, and tracks restoration progress globally.
- Three ways in: join as a supporter, sign up as an implementer running a restoration initiative, or enter as a leading official Decade partner.
- Flagships: 27 World Restoration Flagships now carry the designation; the three newest — in Brazil, the Sahel and Saudi Arabia — committed almost 5 million hectares at UNCCD COP17 in Mongolia.
- Scale so far: the hub’s self-reported data tracks more than 33 million hectares under restoration across over 100 initiatives.
Why one billion hectares
The one-billion-hectare figure is not a slogan; it is the scale at which the Decade’s founding assessment says humanity must act to avert large-scale ecosystem collapse. At launch, the UN warned that the world was using nature’s services 1.6 times faster than ecosystems could sustainably provide, and that conservation and protection alone would not be enough. Restoring ecosystems — from reforesting degraded land to re-wetting peatlands and rehabilitating coral — is framed as essential to cleaner air and water, biodiversity recovery, food security and meeting the three Rio Conventions on climate, biodiversity and desertification.
The three ways into the Restoration Hub
The Ecosystem Restoration Hub is the Decade’s digital meeting place: initiatives linked to it report their progress, and the hub shows where restoration work is happening worldwide. It lists three routes, and they are not the same.
1. Join as a supporter
Anyone who wants to take part without running a project can explore the initiatives that have signed up so far, search them by ecosystem and indicator, and find groups near them to volunteer with.
2. Sign up as an implementer
A person or group already carrying out restoration creates an account and uploads the initiative so others can discover it. The initiative goes through a check before it is approved and published; implementers can then network with other projects, exchange lessons learned and present a public profile card for contact.
3. Enter as a leading partner
Organisations that are already official partners of the UN Decade — lead agencies, collaborating agencies, funding partners, global partners or supporting partners — create a special partner account to showcase their work and onboard their network to the hub.
Flagships show the model at scale
The Decade recognises World Restoration Flagships — pioneering initiatives meant to demonstrate that large-scale restoration works. On 26 August 2026, at the UNCCD COP17 in Mongolia, UNEP and FAO named three new flagships in Brazil, the Sahel region and Saudi Arabia, jointly committing to bring almost five million hectares of degraded land under restoration by 2030 — nearly seven million football pitches. Twenty-seven initiatives now carry the flagship designation, feeding into the wider global goal.
The bottom line
The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration set the number the whole climate and biodiversity world works toward: one billion hectares by 2030. The hub’s three doors — supporter, implementer, leading partner — are how individuals, projects and organisations plug into it. With five years left in the Decade, the test is whether the ecosystem restoration movement can move from promising action to action on promises.
Read more on Watan News: the UN restoration goal.
