Comparative assessment of first generation restoration activities in Latin America to support sub-national restoration efforts for generating emissions reductions

Land degradation is a serious global problem, with economic consequences as demands for food, feed, fuel, and ecosystem services increase. Restoration of degraded lands is an important component of climate change mitigation and adaptation schemes, poverty reduction efforts, and ensuring food security. The 20x20 initiative aims to bring 20 million hectares of land in Latin America and the Caribbean into restoration by 2020. The purpose of this research is to identify institutional and technical arrangements that lead to successful implementation of restoration activities and to improve understanding of what works and what does not in restoration. We start by mapping and producing a database of restoration activities from the 20x20 initiative and characterize these by populating the database with detailed information on the approaches taken by the different activities. Subsequently we overlay the location of the activities on maps of land degradation, deforestation, biomass, emission factors, and emissions hotspots to analyse the potential for environmental impact of the activities. The analysis will enable us to understand how projects are addressing the underlying drivers of land degradation and if they are likely to have longer-term impacts. We will give recommendations on how restoration can contribute to UNFCCC objectives and SDG goals.