Ecosystem Restoration in an Uncertain World: the Role of Regenerative Agriculture and Small Farms

Bonnie Grace Waring^*

• Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

There is no doubt that ecosystem restoration needs to be accelerated over the next decade to mitigate climate change and stem biodiversity loss. Recent commitments like the New York Declaration on Forests (2014), the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use (2021), and the United for Our Forests Pact (2023) all set ambitious targets to slow down or even reverse loss of crucial habitats by 2030. That key benchmark is only five years away, yet deforestation-related carbon emissions have actually increased in the decade since some of these agreements were signed.1 Meanwhile, in order to meet Rio Convention targets, financial investments in the protection and restoration of ecosystems would need to triple by 2030.2 In some senses, the future of the natural world has never seemed so uncertain. Society will likely soon breach the 1.5C warming target,3 loss of natural capital is accelerating,4 and political will to confront these issues seems to be waning – at least in some of the large economies that are most responsible for the decline of nature. Perhaps most emblematic of this trend is the withdrawal of the United States of America from the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation, accompanied by Congressional proposals to sell hundreds of millions of acres of protected public lands. In Europe, the recent adoption of the Nature Restoration Directive is highly encouraging, but progress will likely be stymied by agricultural policies at odds with the mandate for large-scale restoration.5