Bonn Challenge

The Bonn Challenge is a global effort to restore 150 million hectares of the world's degraded and deforested lands by 2020. It was hosted and launched by Germany and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Bonn on 2 September 2011, in collaboration with the Global Partnership on Forest/Landscape Restoration and targets delivery on the Rio Conventions and other outcomes of the 1992 Earth Summit. As at 2013 over 20 million hectares of land had been pledged for restoration from countries including Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Rwanda, and the United States. South Korea, Costa Rica, China, Rwanda and Brazil have embarked on successful landscape restoration programmes. The IUCN estimates that fulfilling the goals of the Bonn challenge would create approximately $84 billion per year in net benefits that could positively affect income opportunities for rural communities. It is also estimated that a reduction of the current carbondioxide emissions gap by 11-17% will be achieved by meeting the challenge.