The draft strategy of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration outlines three broad pathways: generating a global movement, fostering political support, and building technical capacities. Together, they should provide an environment in which restoration initiatives start and scale up across the planet. Creating this “restoration culture” and acting upon it, is both a technical as well as a political challenge: vested interests need to be overcome and different technical capacities are needed.

This session addresses both of these necessary actions: It brings together representatives from three different technical communities to discuss their respective contributions to achieve inclusive ecosystem restoration. What are the focus areas to make ecosystem restoration happen and benefit food insecure people and those most vulnerable? It further discusses ways to create the alliances between the different constituencies for a joint empowered position.

Objectives:

• Learn from relevant projects to determine how the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration can contribute to creating an enabling environment for smallholder farmers to become stewards of restoration
• Explore the role of soils in increasing the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers
• Discuss pathways to ensure that restoration measures consider tenure rights
• Identify strategic areas of cooperation to design and implement programmes for an inclusive UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

Main Session: Soils as keystone for food security and ecosystem restoration