The Road to Restoration: 3 Steps For Transforming Landscapes

The World Resources Institute provides a three-step guide for governments and communities to transform degraded landscapes effectively. The process emphasizes the integration of biophysical data with social landscape analysis to avoid pitfalls such as planting trees in incorrect locations or violating human rights, ensuring that restoration pledges to initiatives like the Bonn Challenge and AFR100 result in high-impact outcomes.

• The first step to effective restoration is understanding both the physical state of the land and the social landscape. This involves mapping actors and integrating the needs and expertise of local people to avoid conflicts and address inequalities, such as the gender-based information gap in the Brazilian Amazon or land-use disputes in Africa's Sahel region.
• Data-driven mapping of restoration potential allows governments to make scientifically informed commitments. For example, Kenya identified a potential to revitalize 5.1 million hectares of land to store more carbon than two years of its total emissions. Similarly, analysis indicates that over 140 million hectares in India could benefit from restoration, potentially sequestering 3 to 4.5 gigatons of above-ground carbon by 2040.
• The second step requires setting clear goals and making trade-offs between competing land uses, such as choosing between maximizing carbon storage and implementing agroforestry for food and income. In Ethiopia, the government used a priority exercise to narrow a map of 70% potential restoration area down to three key areas to meet national goals efficiently.
• The final step is establishing monitoring systems and indicators before implementation to track progress and attract investment. Examples include the Kenya Water Towers Agency's system for tracking watershed restoration for 50 million people, and El Salvador's use of a Sustainability Index for Landscape Restoration in the El Imposible-Barra de Santiago landscape to measure carbon, biodiversity, and water quality.

APA

World Resources Institute (2020). The Road to Restoration: 3 Steps For Transforming Landscapes. https://www.wri.org/insights/road-restoration-3-steps-transforming-landscapes

Chicago

World Resources Institute. The Road to Restoration: 3 Steps For Transforming Landscapes. 2020. https://www.wri.org/insights/road-restoration-3-steps-transforming-landscapes.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=The Road to Restoration: 3 Steps For Transforming Landscapes |date=1 October 2020 |url=https://www.wri.org/insights/road-restoration-3-steps-transforming-landscapes |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitute2020road, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{The Road to Restoration: 3 Steps For Transforming Landscapes}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2020}, month = oct, url = {https://www.wri.org/insights/road-restoration-3-steps-transforming-landscapes}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }