The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
Intense restoration of nature needed to address climate and biodiversity crises, says joint UNEP-FAO report
The triple threat of climate change, loss of nature and pollution requires the world to deliver on its commitment to restore at least one billion degraded hectares of land in the next decade - an area about the size of China states the report “Becoming #GenerationRestoration: Ecosystem restoration for people, nature and climate,” launched today by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO).
The report is also an urgent call for action to address the climate and biodiversity crises.
“Ecosystem faces massive threats, forests are being cleared, rivers and lakes polluted, wetland and peatlands drained, coast and oceans are degraded and overfished, just to mention a few examples”, said Dominique Burgeon, Director of the FAO Liaison Office at the UN in Geneva”. He added that “the conservation of healthy ecosystems is essential, but it is not sufficient. We need to go beyond and restore all ecosystem that can be restored”.
Ecosystems requiring urgent restoration include farmlands, forests, grasslands and savannahs, mountains, peatlands, urban areas, freshwaters, and oceans. Communities living across almost two billion of degraded hectares of land include some of the world's poorest and marginalized.
“The ecosystems are degraded in alarming ways and humanity is using about 1,6 times the amount of services that nature can provide sustainably to its survival”, said Bruno Pozzi, Director of the Europe Office, UNEP. “So definitely the conservation and the way we treat healthy ecosystems as of today is not enough. So we need to restore what we lost or what we have degraded and we need to invest”.
FAO and UNEP stressed that countries should consider building their post-COVID-19 recovery in a greener way. According to UNEP’s Bruno Pozzi, “the Covid-19 pandemic has just reminded us that when we treat nature badly, well there are consequences. It is therefore an opportunity with the trillions of dollars and Euros and Swiss Francs that are coming on the market to accelerate a change and to build back differently, greener and restore our ecosystems”.
Tim Christophersen, Head of the Nature for Climate Branch at UNEP’s Ecosystems Division said that “if we do this at the necessary scale, it will have benefits far beyond climate change and biodiversity. It will have benefits for food security, for health, for clean water, for jobs, restoration can benefit all these Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)”.
Actions that reverse degradation are necessary to meet the Paris Agreement target of keeping global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius. Restoration, if combined with stopping further conversion of natural ecosystems, may help avoid 60 percent of expected biodiversity extinctions. Agroforestry alone has the potential to increase food security for 1.3 billion people, while investments in agriculture, mangrove protection and water management will help adapt to climate change, with benefits around four times the original investment.
“In the last 30 years we have lost an area of forest of 420 million hectares, that’s the size of two countries, India and Nigeria combined, so we are currently still losing 10 million hectares a year”, said Mette Wilkie, FAO Director of the Forestry Division. “That is two and a half time the size of Switzerland. That has to stop and we can do that. The major reason for deforestation varies across the world but largely it’s because of agricultural expansion”.
UNEP and FAO estimate that global land restoration costs are to be at least USD 200 billion per year by 2030. The report outlines that every 1 USD invested in restoration creates up to USD 30 in economic benefits.
While the need for terrestrial restoration is urgent, the coastal and marine protection is even more important for everyone’s wellbeing.
“Two thirds of ocean ecosystems are already being damaged, degraded or modified. If we consider that this planet is about 70% ocean, then that is an enormous amount”, said Tim Christophersen, Head of UNEP’s Nature for Climate Branch and Ecosystems Division. “Keep in mind that his includes also plastic pollution in the ocean which is now so ubiquitous that it is very hard to avoid plastic even in fish that we catch and eat. One third of commercial marine fish populations are fished unsustainably, so this is a real risk to food security.”
-ends -
Shotlist of the Edited story
- Exterior wide shot, Palais des Nations flag alley, nations’ flags flying, a sunny day.
- Medium shot, UNTV studio with technicians
- SOUNDBITE (English) —Dominique Burgeon, Director of the FAO Liaison Office at UN in Geneva: “Ecosystem faces massive threats, forests are being cleared, rivers and lakes polluted, wetland and peatlands drained, coast and oceans are degraded and overfished, just to mention a few examples. Conservation of healthy ecosystems is essential, but it is not sufficient. We need to go beyond and restore all ecosystem that can be restored”.
- Close up, hands on mixer
- SOUNDBITE (English) —Bruno Pozzi, Director of the Europe Office, UNEP: “The ecosystems are degraded in alarming ways and humanity is using about 1,6 times the amount of services that nature can provide sustainably to its survival. So definitely the conservation and the way we treat healthy ecosystems as of today is not enough. So we need to restore what we lost or what we have degraded and we need to invest”.
- Close up, equalizer of sound machine
- SOUNDBITE (English) —Bruno Pozzi, Director of the Europe Office, UNEP: “Covid-19 pandemic has just reminded us that when we treat nature badly, well there are consequences. It is therefore an opportunity with the trillions of dollars and Euros and Swiss Francs that are coming on the market to accelerate a change and to build back differently, greener and restore our ecosystems”.
- Medium shot, monitor with Tim Christophersen speaking
- SOUNDBITE (English) —Tim Christophersen, Head, Nature for Climate Branch, Ecosystems Division, UNEP: “If we do this at the necessary scale, it will have benefits far beyond climate change and biodiversity. It will have benefits for food security, for health, for clean water, for jobs, restoration can benefit all these Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)”.
- Wide shot, UNTV studio in Geneva with technician
- SOUNDBITE (English) —Mette Wilkie, Director of the Forestry Division, FAO: “In the last 30 years we have lost an area of forest of 420 million hectares, that’s the size of two countries, India and Nigeria combined, so we are currently still losing 10 million hectares a year. That is two and a half time the size of Switzerland. That has to stop and we can do that. The major reason for deforestation varies across the world but largely it’s because of agricultural expansion”.
- Close up, recording machine
- SOUNDBITE (English) —Tim Christophersen, Head, Nature for Climate Branch, Ecosystems Division, UNEP: “Two thirds of ocean ecosystems being already damaged, degraded or modified. If we consider that this planet is about 70% ocean, then that is an enormous amount. Keep in mind that his includes also plastic pollution in the ocean which is now so ubiquitous that it is very hard to avoid plastic even in fish that we catch and eat. One third of commercial marine fish populations are fished unsustainably, so this is a real risk to food security.”
- Medium shot, UNTV studio in Geneva with technician
- Medium shot, screen with Mette Wilkie speaking
- Medium shot, screen with Mette Wilkie speaking
Similar Stories
2
1
2
Edited News , Press Conferences | WMO
As world’s water reserves change, countries must prepare for a new reality: WMO
New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
- Past seven years have seen abnorfmal river flows
- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
ends
1
1
1
Edited News | OCHA , WHO
The deadly Ebola virus outbreak in DR Congo continues to spread across the vast country despite some success in containing it, aid officials said on Tuesday, in a renewed call for international support to help responders on the ground.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | WMO , OCHA , WHO , UNICEF , UN WOMEN , OHCHR , IOM , UNHCR
Update on Ebola from WHO and OCHA, update on the situation of children with the beginning of school in Ukraine from UNICEF, UN Women on the impact of the settlers and restrictions on women and girls in West Bank, OHCHR on the recovery of extensive human remains in Gaza, IOM and UNHCR on the new wave of displacement in Yemen
2
1
2
Press Conferences , Edited News | WFP
‘Super El Niño’ and converging crises worsen hunger in South Sudan and across the region - WFP
South Sudan’s hunger crisis is becoming increasingly catastrophic as violence, extreme weather and dwindling aid leave millions without enough food, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | HRC
Update on the human rights situation in Belarus by the UN Group of Independent Experts on the Human Rights Situation in Belarus
1
1
1
Press Conferences | HRC , OHCHR
Update on the human rights situation in Syria by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic
1
1
1
Edited News | UN WOMEN
In war-torn Gaza, a growing number of women-headed households face “impossible decisions” every day, amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes and still-scarce resources, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | UNOG , IOM , UN WOMEN , UNCTAD , WHO , UNECE
IOM Yemen's Western Coast displacement; UN WOMEN on Gaza; UNCTAD Strait of Hormuz disruptions impacts; WHO Ebola logistics in DRC; WHO smoking and infertility; UNECE Data centres and energy.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk made the following remarks to the Enhanced Interactive Dialogue on the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar at the 63rd Human Rights Council.
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk today delivered an update on the global human rights situation to the 63rdsession of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
1
1
1
Edited News | WHO
Repeated attacks on humanitarian warehouses put vital medical aid at risk in Ukraine - WHO
A new airstrike overnight damaged one of the main warehouses used by the UN health agency to store humanitarian medical supplies in the Kyiv region, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. This is the third attack to affect a WHO-used storage in the last three months.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | UNITAR , WMO
UNITAR: GA resolution on the merger of the United Nations System Staff College into the United Nations Institute for Training and Research; WMO: Air Quality and Climate Bulletin released; WHO: Ukraine update