The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

Dr Jason Stevens (Program Leader Kings Park Science)

What is the UN Decade?

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development seeks to end poverty, conserve biodiversity, combat climate change and improve livelihoods for everyone. These objectives, encapsulated in 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are unlikely to be met unless ecosystem degradation is reversed, and ecosystem restoration occurs on an unprecedented scale.

In 2019, following a proposal for action by more than 70 countries, the UN General Assembly declared 2021–2030 the ‘UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration’ (The Decade) which seeks to bring political and technical focus on ecosystem restoration and ensure that healthy ecosystems play a critical role towards achieving the SDG.

Launched on World Environment Day 2021, The Decade’s strategy has vision of ‘A world where – for the health and wellbeing of all life on Earth and that of future generations – we have restored the relationship between humans and nature, by increasing the area of healthy ecosystems, and by putting a stop to their loss, fragmentation and degradation’.

The three main goals supporting this vision involve:

1. Enhancing global, regional, national and local commitments and actions to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems;

2. Increasing our understanding of the benefits of ecosystem restoration;

3. Applying this knowledge in our education systems and all public and private sector decision-making.

This challenge is immense.

Kings Park is uniquely placed to be part of the solution

The central location of Kings Park and Bold Park, the portfolio of activities and experiences that our staff and students have developed, puts us in a unique position to continue leading significant efforts towards the restoration of our delicate and fragile ecosystems as we address these goals.

The lessons learnt from research and restoring local and regional areas, as well as providing knowledge into restoring our ecosystems around the State and internationally enables Kings Park to engage with the Decade from a position of experience.

Partnerships with industry and facilitating individuals and companies to connect with us, will enable us to continue applying our experiences of working within a global biodiversity hotspot to take action throughout The Decade ahead.

Together these actions can build a #GenerationRestoration that is open to everyone.

Locations of ecosystem restoration in Western Australia (see pages 38, 36, 24, 32, 34, 16, and 18 for each species featured).

…for every dollar spent on restoration, between three and seventy-five dollars of economic benefits from ecosystem goods and services can be expected…

The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration: Strategy 2021-2030. www.decadeonrestoration.org

International connections (see page 40)

10 years to restore our planet. 10 actions that count.

1. Empower a global movement

2. Finance restoration on the ground

3. Set the right incentives

4. Celebrate leadership

5. Shift behaviours

6. Invest in research

7. Build up capacity

8. Celebrate a culture of restoration

9. Build up the next generation

10. Listen and learn