With the anticipated restoration of 100 million hectares of deforested and degraded land across Africa by 2030, the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) is literally the biggest restoration effort across the globe. Conditional on receipt of technical and financial support, various African countries have committed to significantly scale up restoration on the ground, to harness the associated benefits for food security, health, biodiversity conservation, climate change resilience and poverty alleviation. Acknowledging the strong will and enthusiasm of poIitical leaders, this plenary wants to bring voices from “deep inside the landscape” to the fore.
These include voices that too often remain unheard in large-scale endeavours;
voices representing all of those actors whose rights and interests may be at stake in restoration efforts that lack sufficient orientation “on the ground”. Community representatives, womens’ groups, youth and Indigenous Peoples representatives will share their experiences, wisdom, fears and hopes for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration commencing in 2021. To make the case for upholding the rights and livelihoods of the stewards of our environment, this plenary session will highlight the daily risks as much as the motivations of those actors when restoring and protecting these precious landscapes.