Africa takes action to advance landscape restoration goals
This week, representatives from 24 countries across Africa reaffirmed the continent’s commitment to bringing degraded landscapes and livelihoods back to life. At a meeting in Niger, partners of the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) exchanged their experiences using forest landscape restoration practices to achieve their national environmental and sustainable development goals.
AFR100 is a Pan-African country-led initiative that aims to bring 100 million hectares of degraded land into restoration by 2030. To date, countries have already committed more than 80 million hectares. On September 26-27, participating countries analyzed how to go from commitment to action and shared practical ways to work with the communities to initiate restoration on the ground.
The country hosting this year’s meeting, Niger, has already successfully restored 5 million hectares using farmer-managed natural regeneration. “Restoration is a key issue for the resilience of our communities,” said Niger’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Almoustapha Garba. “The Bonn Challenge, focused on Africa through AFR100, is very ambitious but achievable. The attitude in Niger is that this is hard but not impossible.”
CIFOR