WRI announced today that "a global effort to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested lands by 2020 is being launched in Bonn, Germany" in the context of the Bonn Challenge Ministerial Roundtable organized by the Government of Germany and IUCN in collaboration with the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration (GPFLR).   

The announcement builds on a revised assessment identifying now more than 2 billion hectares of degraded lands with potential for restoration worldwide. That's twice the amount reported last year!

WRI explains the discrepancy in the following terms: 

"This restoration opportunity map is a revised and improved version of a previous map (published in 2009 and revised in 2010). The boreal forest landscapes of the north are now included; differences in forest canopy cover are reflected in greater detail; the assessment of potential forest cover has been improved; and the analysis has been updated with more recent and higher resolution data."

The mapping activity received support from PROFOR.

In case you missed this video, film-maker John Liu did a great job last year sharing his vision of a world in which wide-scale forest landscape restoration can break the vicious cycle of poverty and environmental degradation.

"For Forests" by John Liu from Program on Forests (PROFOR) on Vimeo.