UN awards three new world restoration flagships at the UN desertification conference in Mongolia, recognizing major land restoration programmes in the Sahel, Brazil and Saudi Arabia. Together, the initiatives aim to restore almost five million hectares by 2030, an area equivalent to nearly seven million football fields. The recognition comes as the UN pushes toward its broader goal of restoring one billion hectares of degraded land by 2030.

UNCCD chief Yasmine Fouad said the programmes demonstrate that restoration can strengthen resilience, support livelihoods and deliver practical benefits for communities. The initiatives also reflect a growing understanding that land degradation, drought and ecosystem loss affect far more than the environment, with direct consequences for food security, water security and economic stability.

Brazil Targets the Cerrado

Brazil’s Cerrado covers about one-quarter of the country’s land and is considered the world’s most biodiverse tropical savannah. However, more than half of its native vegetation has been lost through large-scale land conversion and climate change, affecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights, food production and water availability.

The restoration programme brings together more than 180 partners across nine Brazilian states, using natural regeneration, direct seeding, restoration and agroforestry with native species. More than 27,000 hectares have already been placed under restoration, with seeds from over 150 native plant species used in restoration activities. The programme aims to restore two million hectares by 2030.

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Saudi Arabia Focuses on Arid Landscapes

Saudi Arabia’s National Greening Programme is working across rangelands, forests, deserts, urban areas and coastal ecosystems.

• The country has a longer-term target of restoring 40 million hectares by 2100 and planting 10 billion trees.
• The programme has already brought one million hectares of degraded land under restoration and planted 159 million trees.
• Its methods include reforestation, natural regeneration, controlled grazing, native wildlife reintroduction, rainwater harvesting and treated wastewater use.
• By 2030, it aims to restore 2.5 million hectares, plant 215 million trees and generate up to 187,000 jobs.

Sahel Links Restoration With Food Security

The Sahel Integrated Resilience Initiative, operating across Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, has focused on restoring degraded land while improving livelihoods and food security. Since 2018, the programme has benefited more than four million people and rehabilitated over 335,000 hectares.

• Monitoring shows that 75% of programme sites recorded improved soil and vegetation conditions.
• The number of households requiring humanitarian assistance in those areas also declined by about 11% during the lean season.
• By 2030, the initiative aims to restore 470,000 hectares, improve biodiversity and lock away up to 20 million tonnes of CO₂.

UN awards three new world restoration flagships, showing how restoration efforts can be tailored to very different landscapes, from Brazil’s threatened savannah to Saudi Arabia’s arid environments and the drought-affected Sahel. Their combined targets also underline the scale of the global land-restoration challenge and the potential benefits when ecological recovery is linked directly to livelihoods, food production and community resilience.

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