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.
The Declaration also pledges to align policies that will lead to the decarbonization of the Latin American and Caribbean economies by 2050 and collaborate to present updates on this common restoration agenda at COP25 in Chile in December.
Initiative 20x20 will serve as a platform to facilitate access to the financial mechanisms of the UNFCCC and to private funds for investment in restoration. It will also help partners share knowledge and tools to monitor progress on how each country can use their healthy landscapes to fight climate change and fulfil their Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement.
Read the Buenos Aires Declaration on Restoration:
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Buenos Aires Declaration on Restoration by the Members of Initiative 20x20
The signing parties, participants of the Initiative 20x20 Annual Partners Meeting in Buenos Aires, as a result of discussions, technical-panel conclusions, and the decision of the parties to focus the Initiative’s objective in placing 30 million hectares of degraded land under restoration by 2030 (included in their Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs),
And understanding the unique conditions of Latin America and the Caribbean, the sources of its greenhouse gases, the urgency of the global climate crisis, and the relative vulnerability of the region’s economies and ecosystems to the impacts of climate change,
They invite the countries in the region to:
1. Coordinate their common positions in the meetings leading to the COP25 in Santiago, next December, in order to present a common Latin American agenda that promotes the vision of stimulating strategic public-private investment in the region in order to encourage the restoration of ecosystems along with social and economic development, pointing to the triple impact of such investments;
2. Reiterate the call to the financial mechanisms of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to support programs and actions in land use and land use change (LULUC) in the region, recognizing that such actions have the greatest potential for net reductions of emissions in the region and entail social, environmental and financial benefits;
3. Call on the bank and insurance funds sectors to supplement and address these programs and actions with their resources;
4. Jointly present the positive impact for global climate action, the policies promoted by the countries of the region in the restoration of ecosystems, and the implementation of sustainable land use; and
5. Present actions that lead to the decarbonization of the regional economy by 2050, demonstrating the potential of the region's contribution to the global goals in the framework of the three Rio Conventions on restoration of ecosystems and landscapes, and sustainable production.
The parties propose that, in order to direct their agendas towards the actions outlined above, countries take advantage of the Initiative's platform to:
1. Report on the preparation and development of at-scale climate actions in land use and land-use change;
2. Highlight the contribution of programs and actions in land use and land use change (LULUC) to their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs); and
3. Advance in establishing mechanisms to monitor the progress of actions that contribute to the net decarbonization of the region by 2050, including efforts focused on reducing deforestation.