A UN report released on 29 October 2026 in Yerevan found that 252 million hectares across 149 countries are currently being restored, creating more than one million green jobs and marking the largest documented global restoration effort to date, according to a press release by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The report, titled Nature’s comeback – scaling ecosystem restoration for people and planet, was co-published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), UNEP, and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). It was launched at a high-level event during the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17). The report warns that action must rapidly increase to meet 2030 commitments. Annual restoration finance will need to more than quadruple, potentially generating up to an estimated 32 million new jobs worldwide by 2030.
The findings arrive midway through the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030). The assessment is the first comprehensive global review of progress against pledges to restore around one billion hectares. It also measures advancement toward the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework target to place at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial, freshwater, marine, and coastal ecosystems under effective restoration by 2030. Since the Decade began, its partnership network has expanded to more than 300 organizations across all regions. Five initiatives in China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Italy, and the United States were honored as UN World Restoration Flagships.
Asia accounts for 192.2 million hectares of the total documented area under restoration, followed by Africa with 36.3 million hectares, Europe with 9.1 million hectares, North and Central America with 5.8 million hectares, South America with 5.4 million hectares, and Oceania with 3.2 million hectares. China alone reports the largest terrestrial area under restoration at 127.4 million hectares, with Mongolia and Kazakhstan also contributing substantial figures. Terrestrial restoration has reached nearly half of the 2030 global target. However, progress in freshwater, marine, and coastal ecosystems remains limited, with only 11 million hectares of freshwater and 5.7 million hectares of marine and coastal ecosystems documented across 62 and 46 countries, respectively. The share of Parties reporting implemented wetland restoration programmes has risen from 8 percent to 54 percent since 2022.
Research cited in the report shows that restoring just 15 percent of global priority areas could capture and store 30 percent of CO₂-equivalent emissions since the industrial revolution and help avoid 60 percent of species extinctions. Annual restoration finance will need to grow more than fourfold, from US$64 billion to US$296 billion by 2030, with the largest needs in agroforestry (US$87 billion), restorative reforestation (US$52 billion), peatland restoration (US$44 billion), and seagrass restoration (US$28 billion).
“Today, we are witnessing the makings of one of the largest movements for nature in recorded history,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.
She added that at the halfway point of the Decade, nature is still not being restored at the required scale or speed. FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said that “five years into the UN Decade, the message is clear: restoration works.”
The report calls for the next phase of the Decade to move beyond individual projects toward “restoration economies” capable of sustaining ecological recovery, livelihoods, and long-term value at scale. Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the CBD Secretariat, said governments must address the drivers of ecosystem degradation and invest in monitoring mechanisms. Secure tenure, meaningful participation, and respect for the rights, knowledge, and leadership of Indigenous Peoples and other rights-holders are described as essential. Data underpinning the report were drawn from government-endorsed submissions and reports to FAO’s Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring (FERM). The assessment concludes that restoration must be sustained long enough to enable the recovery of ecosystem integrity and biodiversity.