WASHINGTON (Landscape News) — A 9.2 million hectare landscape restoration corridor in Colombia will link the borders of Brazil and Ecuador to halt further degradation of the Amazon, said Walter Vergara, senior fellow at World Resources Institute, speaking at the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) Investment Case Summit in Washington.
The green belt is one of several examples under the 20×20 Initiative Vergara detailed at the event, which attracted 250 delegates and focused on the financial aspects of landscape restoration.
Initiative 20×20 is a framework supporting the Bonn Challenge — a commitment made during U.N. Climate talks in 2014 to restore 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded land by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030 — through efforts to restore 20 million hectares of land in Latin America and the Caribbean by 2020.
Vergara said enthusiasm for landscape restoration has led to an increased ambition to place 50 million hectares under restoration by 2030.
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