Restoring the Unrestored: Strategies for Restoring Global Land during the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (UN-DER)

Abstract

Restoring the health of degraded land is critical for overall human development as land is a vital life-supporting system, directly or indirectly influencing the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs). However, more than 33% of the global land is degraded and thereby affecting the livelihood of billions of people worldwide. Realizing this fact, the 73rd session of the UN Assembly has formally adopted a resolution to celebrate 2021-2030 as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (UN-DER), for preventing, halting, and reversing degradation of ecosystems worldwide. While this move is historic and beneficial for both people and the planet, restoration of degraded land at different scales and levels requires a paradigm shift in existing restoration approaches, fueled by the application of applied science to citizen/community-based science, and tapping of indigenous and local knowledge to advanced technological breakthroughs. In addition, there is a need of strong political will and positive behavioral changes to strengthen restoration initiatives at the grassroot level and involvement of people from all walks of life (i.e., from politicians to peasants and social workers to scientists) are essential for achieving the targets of the UN-DER. Similarly, financing restoration on the ground by the collective contribution of individuals (crowd funding) and institutions (institutional funding) are critical for maintaining the momentum. Private companies can earmark lion-share of their corporate social responsibility fund (CSR fund) exclusively for restoration. The adoption of suitable bioeconomy models is crucial for maintaining the perpetuity of the restoration by exploring co-benefits, and also for ensuring stakeholder involvements during and after the restoration. This review underpins various challenges and plausible solutions to avoid, reduce, and reverse global land degradation as envisioned during the UN-DER, while fulfilling the objectives of other ongoing initiatives like the Bonn Challenge and the UN-SDGs.

Seed Priming: A Potential Supplement in Integrated Resource Management Under Fragile Intensive Ecosystems

“…It is projected that over 33% of land resources in the world are degraded owing to intensive agricultural practices, deforestation, desertification, salinization, pollution, industrialization, urbanization, unscientific landuse practices, climate change, etc. (Abhilash, 2021). Globally, drylands are distributed around 6.45 billion hectares, and 70% of these lands are used for cultivation purposes (Karim and Rahman, 2015).…”

Environmental Degradation by Invasive Alien Plants in the Anthropocene: Challenges and Prospects for Sustainable Restoration

“…The present status of environmental perturbation can be realised by the fact that about 33% of the global land is degraded in nature due to multiple disturbances (Parepa et al 2013;Nkonya et al 2016). Further, according to United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 52% of global agricultural lands are degraded to varying extent, impacting the livelihood of 2.6 billion agrarian people and farmers (Abhilash 2021). Nevertheless, IAPs successfully colonized the marginal lands and depauperate ecosystems, not suited for growing other agricultural crops .…”

“…Anthropogenic activities such as mining can drastically remove the vegetation cover and top-soil and has been estimated to impact an area of 2 million hectares/year worldwide (FAO 2006). In this sense, biodiversity loss through forest degradation alone is predicted to influence the well-being of about 1.6 billion people among which about 74% are rural people with low livelihood opportunities (Abhilash 2021). The 'invasion windows' generated by anthropogenic disturbances allow IAPs to act as passenger along with the potential plant traits such as; prolific seed production, efficient seed dispersal, greater propagules mobility, and allelochemic attributes (Sakachep and Rai 2021).…”

“…In this sense, Priyadarshini and Abhilash (2020) opined that implementation of environmental restoration strategies in concert with the incorporation of circularity practices, such as biorefinery co-benefits (e.g., bioenergy/bio-fuel production) to provide an impetus in achieving the several targets of SDGs. Furthermore, the clean energy production through potential bioenergy non-food crops (e.g., Panicum virgatum and Brassica carinata) on degraded or marginal non-arable lands can enhance the C-sequestration, energy security, provisioning services, rural livelihood, and, assist in climate change mitigation without compromising the food security (Priyadarshini and Abhilash 2020;Abhilash 2021;Feng et al 2021). Circular bioeconomy emphasizes the use of renewable bioresources for the human needs such as materials, food, and energy (Woźniak et al 2021).…”

Marine ecosystem restoration in a changing ocean

“…(2) nature, severity, and extent of degradation; (3) extent of surviving resilience of native biodiversity, habitats, and ecosystems; (4) edaphic (soil or sediment) and climatic conditions; (5) availability of funding, management infrastructure, natural resources, stakeholder support and involvement, and importantly; (6) effectiveness of the restoration technologies employed (Abhilash 2021). A recent synthesis of land restoration projects by Coppus et al (2019) identifies an additional three key elements that affect the outcome of restoration interventions: the size and siting of areas selected for restoration (in biophysical and geographical terms and with respect to the cultural, political, and socio-economic contexts), the amount of upfront funding invested in restoration and amounts pledged for the future, and availability of funding for associated monitoring efforts.…”