Global Perspective

The pressure on land and ecosystems is growing in many regions of the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South America. This is mainly due to the increasing demand for arable crops, meat and dairy products, bio-energy and timber, while land degradation and climate change impacts continue to accelerate. Such impacts have huge consequences for ecosystem functions, biodiversity, and the resilience of ecological and human systems.

Compared to the baseline scenario in 2050, an ambitious global implementation of solutions to restore natural land and rehabilitate agricultural land will benefit many SDGs, including those on climate action, food security, and land degradation. At the global level, there is a projected increase of around 9 per cent in crop yield, an estimated 3 per cent of additional soil carbon sequestration, and reduction in biodiversity loss of up to 2 per cent MSA. Explore the global and regional potential benefits of restoration in the graph below.

Nature-based solutions can provide an important contribution to multiple SDGs simultaneously, such as safeguarding global food production, conserving biodiversity and mitigating climate change impacts. However, they are only a part of a wider palette of options required to bend the trend. Nature-based solutions (in terms of restoration and conservation) need to be combined with changes to production and consumption in order to further close the gap towards reaching many of the SDGs, such as plant rich diets, reducing the yield gap, reduction of waste and changes to the energy system. If all these solutions are combined into a broader "Sharing the Planet" scenario, the potential future impact they may have on food production, biodiversity conservation and global temperatures can be seen. The graphs show the current pathway, a pathway with just restoration and protection, and the broader scenario with all solutions combined.

Different solutions are applicable in different circumstances, land uses, climates and land conditions. Explore the 15 different solutions and where they can be applied across the world. The single restoration solution maps show only what is technically feasible. The combined map shows the optimum solution(s) regarding largest soil carbon gains, only on degraded land area.