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The Humbo project in Ethiopia restored 2,700 hectares of land from 2006 onwards using Farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR), a low-cost method where farmers prune native tree stumps and root systems. Supported by World Vision and the World Bank's BioCarbon Fund, the project integrated carbon sequestration payments with community-led land management. Key success factors included secure land rights, the use of endemic species, and the creation of community cooperatives. While the project improved soil health, reduced erosion, and increased firewood availability, it faced challenges regarding the high transaction costs of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) compliance and delays in carbon payments.

The document analyzes the restoration of approximately 4 million hectares of forest in New England between 1880 and 2000, which occurred largely through the passive abandonment of agricultural land. It identifies market shifts toward Midwestern agriculture and the subsequent decline of small-scale regional farming as primary drivers. While ecological conditions and policy measures like the Weeks Act of 1911 supported this recovery, the report warns that current trends are reversing due to residential development, population growth, and ecological pressures such as deer browsing.

South Korea successfully increased its forest cover from approximately 3.5 million hectares in the mid-1950s to 6.4 million hectares by 2007, primarily through active restoration. This recovery was driven by strong government leadership, national awareness campaigns, and a series of multi-year Forest Development Plans. While the restoration provided significant ecosystem services valued at over US$92 billion as of 2013, the study notes caveats including a historical reliance on authoritarian labor practices, low species diversity due to a focus on coniferous trees, and a high dependence on imported wood, including illegally sourced timber.

The document defines a greenhouse gas offset as a unit of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) reduced, avoided, or sequestered to compensate for emissions elsewhere. It outlines five essential criteria for environmental integrity: offsets must be real (representing actual reductions relative to a baseline), permanent (not reversible), additional (resulting from carbon market incentives rather than business-as-usual), verifiable (monitored by independent third parties), and enforceable (tracked via registries to prevent double counting). The text distinguishes between regulatory markets, where government agencies set standards, and voluntary markets, which rely on various independent standards for quality assurance. It notes that while offsets can support corporate emissions strategies after internal mitigation is maximized, future climate programs are more likely to recognize internal abatement over offsets.

The world faces a 69 percent gap between 2006 crop calories and those required by 2050 for a population of 9.6 billion. Closing this gap through production alone would require increases exceeding those seen between 1962 and 2006. The document proposes a 'menu of solutions' categorized by reducing consumption, increasing production on existing land, and reducing emissions. Key strategies include cutting food loss and waste in half (reducing the gap by 20%), achieving replacement level fertility in sub-Saharan Africa (reducing the regional gap by 25%), and shifting 20% of future beef consumption to other proteins. It warns that aggressive bioenergy targets could widen the food gap to 100%.

The briefing explains that carbon offsets can lower compliance costs in cap-and-trade systems by allowing regulated sources to compensate for emissions through reductions at unregulated sources. To maintain system integrity, offsets must be "real, surplus (or additional), verifiable, permanent, and enforceable." The author highlights that forestry and agriculture projects face higher quantification uncertainties—including measurement, baseline, leakage, and reversibility risks—which increase transaction costs for certification. Consequently, the document suggests that direct payments may be a more cost-effective alternative to offset markets for these specific high-uncertainty project types.

The United States needs to remove approximately 2 GtCO2 per year by 2050 to achieve climate neutrality, given that the U.S. Mid-century Strategy for Deep Decarbonization leaves roughly 2.55 GtCO2 of gross annual emissions unaddressed and land sinks are projected to decline. To reach this target, the document argues that an "all-of-the-above" portfolio—combining natural pathways like tree restoration and agricultural soil carbon with technological approaches like direct air capture—is the most effective, risk-averse, and cheapest strategy, yielding the highest cumulative carbon removal by 2050.

The report provides an economic analysis of securing indigenous land rights in the Amazon basin of Bolivia, Brazil, and Colombia. Using matching analysis, it finds that tenure-secure indigenous forestlands have significantly lower deforestation rates than similar non-secure lands. A benefit-cost analysis indicates that the investment is low-cost and high-benefit, with total ecosystem service benefits estimated between $679 and $1,530 billion over 20 years, while costs represent less than 1 percent of these benefits. The report argues that securing indigenous tenure is a more cost-effective carbon mitigation measure than fossil carbon capture and storage. It recommends that governments reform laws to strengthen community land rights and integrate tenure security into their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

The GHG Protocol for Project Accounting establishes a framework for project developers to credibly quantify GHG reductions by comparing project emissions against a counter-factual baseline. It details two primary baseline procedures—project-specific and performance standard—and emphasizes the importance of defining a GHG assessment boundary that includes both primary and significant secondary effects. The guide outlines six core accounting principles (relevance, completeness, consistency, transparency, accuracy, and conservativeness) and provides detailed requirements for monitoring and reporting reductions to ensure environmental integrity and transparency.

The report argues that while land restoration offers high economic returns—estimated at $7 to $30 for every dollar invested—it remains severely underfunded with an annual gap of approximately $300 billion. It identifies seven systemic barriers to investment, including the lack of market value for public benefits and long investment horizons. The authors recommend a cross-sectoral government approach, the use of carbon taxes to fund restoration, and the implementation of risk-mitigation tools like first-loss guarantees and tax credits to attract private capital. The document also provides a framework for economic valuation to make the full suite of ecosystem services visible to decision-makers.

The report argues that large-scale landscape restoration in Latin America and the Caribbean is economically attractive, estimating a net present value of $23 billion over 50 years for the restoration of 20 million hectares. The analysis identifies agricultural productivity gains and carbon sequestration as the primary drivers of economic value, though results vary significantly by biome and degree of degradation. The study emphasizes that such efforts are critical for the region to achieve a low-carbon development path and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from land-use change.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) provides research and policy recommendations to support the United States' transition to a low-carbon economy. Its work spans industrial modernization in sectors like cement and steel, the deployment of renewable and clean firm power, and the development of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategies. WRI also focuses on systemic barriers such as permitting reform for energy transmission, the responsible sourcing of critical minerals, carbon pricing, and the electrification of transportation, including a specific initiative for electric school buses.

The document argues that integrating natural infrastructure—such as forests and wetlands—with built infrastructure can reduce water treatment costs and enhance water security. It provides a framework for 'green-gray analysis' to compare these options, discusses the scientific links between forest cover and water quality, and outlines various finance mechanisms and stakeholder engagement strategies to scale these efforts across the U.S.

The Restoration Diagnostic is a three-step guide developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) to increase the success rate of forest landscape restoration (FLR). By analyzing 16 historical case studies and peer-reviewed literature, WRI identified a suite of 'key success factors' categorized into three themes: motivation, enabling conditions, and implementation capacity. The diagnostic allows users to define a geographic scope, assess the status of these factors (in place, partly in place, or missing), and develop targeted strategies to close identified gaps. The tool is designed for mid-level managers in government, NGOs, and the private sector and serves as a component of the broader Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM).

The document details the diet, social structure, and species diversity of gorillas in central and eastern Africa. It highlights the role of gorillas as an "umbrella" species whose habitat protection supports broader biodiversity and climate change mitigation, particularly in the Congo Basin. The text also outlines threats such as Ebola, poaching, and habitat destruction, while noting that ecotourism provides financial incentives for forest preservation.

The document describes the increasing scale and intensity of wildfires, driven by climate change and historical fire suppression practices, particularly in the United States. It highlights how fires release significant carbon stores, including 'legacy carbon', and disproportionately affect marginalized communities. To mitigate these risks, the author advocates for a combination of 100% clean energy transition, prescribed burns, fire-resistant construction, and equitable community engagement in land-use planning.

The 'Work Out Your Wild Side' guide by WWF International is a five-week educational challenge that combines physical education with facts about global biodiversity. Each week focuses on a specific habitat—freshwater, oceans, forests, grasslands, and polar regions—pairing exercises with information on animal adaptations and the threats facing these ecosystems, such as climate change and pollution. The program concludes with a journal reflection assignment to encourage students to think about helping endangered species.

Wetlands are aquatic environments that provide critical ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration and water filtration, yet 87% of the world's wetlands have been lost over the last 300 years. They can store up to 50 times more carbon than rainforests and support the livelihoods of 300 to 400 million people. Conservation efforts include the Freshwater Challenge, which aims to commit 350 million hectares of degraded wetlands to restoration by 2030.

Beavers are described as keystone species and "ecosystem engineers" whose dam-building activities create wetlands that sequester carbon and support biodiversity. Their structures regulate water flow to mitigate flooding, replenish groundwater during droughts, and create fire-tolerant zones that suffer only one-third of the damage compared to areas without beavers. In the US Great Plains, where populations were historically depleted by fur traders, initiatives like WWF’s Sustainable Ranching Initiative are using human-made beaver dam analogs in Montana and the Rio Grande basin to restore ecological functions and prepare landscapes for beaver recolonization.

Whales support the ocean's carbon-sequestering capacity by acting as a 'phytoplankton multiplier'. Through the 'whale pump' (vertical movement of minerals) and the release of nutrient-rich waste containing iron, phosphorus, and nitrogen, whales fertilize marine ecosystems. This supports phytoplankton, which capture approximately 37 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide and produce at least 50% of the atmosphere's oxygen. Despite a ban on commercial whaling, whale populations remain significantly lower than pre-commercial levels, with six of the 13 great whale species listed as endangered or vulnerable due to threats like ship strikes, plastic pollution, and climate change.