Bonn Challenge regional meeting in Guatemala
The State Secretary at the Federal Environment Ministry, Jochen Flasbarth, is attending the fourth Bonn Challenge Latin America meeting in Guatemala City. The meeting is aimed at the restoration of forests and forest landscapes worldwide. The Bonn Challenge on forest landscape restoration has gained huge momentum in Central America and the Caribbean. Central American countries have pledged to restore more than 16 million hectares of forests and forest landscapes by 2020. The Latin American region has pledged a total of 56 million hectares.
Environment State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth commented: “The century of global, rampant deforestation, must now be succeeded by a century of forest conservation and restoration. Forest and forest landscape restoration is not only ecologically necessary, it also makes economic sense. We are supporting Central American countries in their efforts to restore their forests and forest landscapes and now hope to gain the support of the EU. We are currently in the final round of discussions regarding support of 22 million euros.”
3.2 billion people around the world are directly affected by land degradation. The deterioration in landscape quality and decreasing capacity of nature is a growing problem. The IPBES thematic assessment of land degradation and restoration paints an alarming picture. The restoration of forests and forest landscapes is an important means of improving the situation. The benefits of forest landscape restoration are, on average, ten times more valuable than the costs of restoration. At the same time, the costs of doing nothing would be three times higher than the restoration costs.