News & Blogs

Updates from technical and financial partners of Initiative 20x20, as well as the latest news from member countries, supporting storytelling and the sharing of restoration successes from across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Under Initiative 20x20, countries aim to change the dynamics of land degradation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Impact investors cooperatives, smallholders, and start-ups are creating sustainable agricultural value chains by helping farmers and other producers restore degraded land.

La Declaración de Buenos Aires sobre Restauración exhorta a los países miembros de la Iniciativa 20x20 a alinear esfuerzos a favor de restaurar 30 millones de hectáreas de tierra degradada antes de 2030. 17 países buscarán promover una visión común que impulse inversiones público-privadas encaminadas a restaurar ecosistemas y paisajes vitales, y, fundamentalmente, promover el desarrollo social y económico de la región.

The Buenos Aires Declaration on Restoration invites the partners of Initiative 20x20 to align efforts towards restoring 30 million hectares of degraded land by 2030. 17 countries will seek to promote a common vision that encourages public-private investments aimed at restoring vital ecosystems and landscapes, and ultimately fostering social and economic development in the region.

Buenos Aires. 18 de junio de 2019 — América Latina y el Caribe reforzaron hoy su compromiso con la restauración de tierras degradadas, las cuales son fundamentales para consolidar el desarrollo económico sostenido con menos emisiones de carbono y mayor productividad agropecuaria. Por ello, a través de Iniciativa 20x20, 17 países trabajarán para alinear política pública e inversiones con la visión de restaurar paisajes a un nivel capaz de ayudar a la región a alcanzar neutralidad de carbono antes de 2050. De acuerdo con el Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente, este nivel equivaldría a alrededor de 250 millones de hectáreas.

Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean reinforced today their commitment to restore degraded landscapes that are key for sustained economic growth, with less carbon emissions and better agriculture productivity.  This is why — through Initiative 20x20 — 17 countries will work to align policies and investment aimed at restoring land by 2050 at a level that could help the region achieve carbon neutrality.  This level has been estimated by the United Nations Environment Program to be about 250 million hectares.

The potential economic, social, and environmental benefits of restoration are diverse and clear – from fighting climate change, through helping improve water and food security, to connecting local farmers to global value chains. But how are companies, local communities, and governments restoring degraded land? Here is how Initiative 20x20’s partners are transforming Latin America and the Caribbean.

Ninety-one rivers longer than 1,000 km once connected with seas and oceans. Today, only 21 still flow freely. A team of 34 international researchers has assessed the connectivity status of 12 million kilometers of rivers worldwide, providing the first ever global assessment of the location and extent of the planet’s remaining free-flowing rivers. Their findings indicate that these rivers are largely restricted to remote regions of the Arctic and the Amazon and Congo Basins.

Initiative 20x20 partner Southern Wings has some key new projects in Latin America.

BLOG April 2019

In this podcast, WRI Vice President for Communications Lawrence MacDonald interview Walter Vergara, a senior fellow with WRI's Forests program, and Etienne Demarais is CEO of URAPI Sustainable Land Use, a fund created to invest in land restoration.  

BLOG April 2019

Governments need the support of private landholders and community groups to fulfill their restoration pledges. Some governments are pioneering programs that incentivize landholders to restore their land by growing and harvesting timber and other forest products. In many cases, forest management through small-scale timber plantations on restored land can be a long-term investment for the economy and the environment. Mature trees can be selectively harvested and replaced to ensure that carbon and soil remain in place and to provide a consistent income for landholders.

NEWS February 2019

The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of El Salvador presented the Sustainability Index for Restoration (ISR), made up of eight sub-indexes that measure the biophysical and socio-economic impacts of landscape restoration actions.

NEWS February 2019

For decades, the indigenous Awajún people of northern Peru have struggled to overcome systemic poverty, discrimination, and violence. Now, as members of the APROCAM cooperative, they’re attaining higher incomes—and a better quality of life. 

NEWS January 2019

In November 2018, the Climate and Land Use Alliance together with the German government (BMU and GiZ) co-hosted a workshop on carbon removals. 

BLOG January 2019

Andes Amazon Fund helped create 3.4 million ha of protected areas and indigenous territories in Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, and Ecuador in 2018.

BLOG December 2018

Brazil is currently the seventh-largest producer of cocoa in the world, with approximately 200,000 tons per year. But in the 1980s, before witch’s broom disease eradicated 75% of cocoa plants in Bahia State and the global market price declined, Brazil produced more than 430,000 tons of cocoa.

NEWS December 2018

NEWS December 2018

Walter Vergara and René Zamora Cristales of the Initiative 20x20 Secretariat participated in the Extraordinary General Meeting of the Council of Ministries of the Central American Commission on Environment and Development (CCAD) from Decemeber 4 to 5.

NEWS December 2018

Initiative 20x20’s secretariat, World Resources Institute, has secured additional funding from The German Federal Ministry of Environment (BMU), to deepen the support for three priority countries, Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay.

BLOG October 2018

Canopy Energy and Investancia seek to harness silvopastoral systems to sequester carbon, generate economic growth and increase cattle productivity — all at the same time.

NEWS October 2018

Article from El Mercurio

NEWS September 2018

The ministers of Agriculture and the Environment of Chile, in coordination with Corporación Nacional Forestal (CONAF), Instituo Forestal de Chile (INFOR) and international organizations, are now working on restoring degraded or deforested landscapes to contribute to the development of local stakeholders.

BLOG September 2018

Nine companies presented projects in six different states across Brazil demonstrating wide-ranging goals that deliver social, environmental, and financial benefits.

BLOG September 2018

The Tambopata National Reserve in the Madre de Dios region of Peru is located between the fringes of the Amazon rainforest and the city of Puerto Maldonado.

BLOG August 2018

Deforestation and land degradation is loosening soil in many of the watersheds in Latin America, resulting in sediment flowing into rivers and clogging dams. This is reducing electricity output for hydropower, the source of 65% of the region’s power and directly threatening hundreds of billions of dollars of economic activity.

NEWS August 2018

Entrepreneurs present innovative restoration projects to investors and Brazilian authorities.

Exchange of Initiative 20x20 partners and government officials in Central America contributes to build a roadmap for monitoring the impacts of restoration across the region.

Ministers back vital climate action across the region, with announcement calling for growth in restoration and conservation finance

An estimated 15 billion trees are cut down each year—more than 41 million per day.

How is the agro-ecological transition working in Latin and Central America?

The World Conference on Ecological Restoration takes place in Iguazu Falls, Brazil

Conservación Patagónica (CP), established by conservationists Douglas and Kristine Tompkins in 2000, is a community of people committed to the wild future of Patagonia, thought to be one of the wildest places left on the planet.

The global land restoration movement launched in Bonn five years ago is gaining steam. It’s big and it’s ambitious.

NEWS April 2018

Minister of Environment of Colombia announced the Green Belt Initiative natural barrier that would prevent the further deforestation and degradation of ecosystems in the Amazonia region.

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