Announcing the 2022 Restoration Stewards
Today, we will announce the 2022 Restoration Stewards, who will receive funding, mentorship, and training to bring their restoration project to the next level. We will also hear from restoration practitioners about their hopes for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and what is to come in the next few years.
On the second day of the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) Climate 2021, Unveiling the Restoration Alliances session. The host, Camille Rivera, welcomes everyone to the event and introduces herself as the Wetland Restoration Steward. She is joined by Sunday, a part of GLFx Yaounde Chapter, as co-host.
They begin by discussing the Restoration Alliance, which brings together community-led and action-oriented groups within the GLF working towards landscape sustainability worldwide. They also announce the new GLF chapters, including GLFx Yaounde, GLFx Ibadan, GLFx Bawku, and GLFx Nkambe.
The highlight of the event is the announcement of the 2022 Restoration Stewards. John Colmey, the GLF Managing Director, praises the importance of the Restoration Steward Program in creating impactful change on the ground. He announces five selected restoration stewards from different ecosystems worldwide.
Next, the newly announced Restoration Stewards, Sergio from Colombia and Emem from Nigeria, share their projects and how they are connected to food systems. Sergio focuses on forest restoration’s impact on food availability, while Emem emphasizes agroforestry and alternative livelihoods to support local communities.
The discussion then shifts to how the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration can support young people’s efforts in restoration. Emem emphasizes the need for the UN to engage and support passionate youth in their restoration work.
Both Sergio and Emem elaborate on their projects’ plans for the following year. Sergio aims to involve more students and young people in monitoring and scientific publications related to forest restoration. Emem’s project focuses on restoring a degraded forest reserve in Nigeria and upgrading it to a national park, engaging the state government and indigenous communities.
About GLF Climate 2021
Hosted digitally and in Glasgow alongside COP26, the GLF Climate 2021 hybrid conference made a unanimous call for ambitious, concrete action to stop the climate crisis.
Attended by 4,386 digital participants from 145 countries, along with 481 in-person participants at the University of Glasgow, the event featured 400 leading scientists, activists, Indigenous leaders, financiers, youth, and government leaders.
Across 67 plenaries, interactive sessions, launches, and climate talks, GLF Climate: Forests, Food, Finance – Frontiers of Change explored the potential of three key climate solutions: forest restoration, resilient food systems, and sustainable finance. Messages spread on social media rallied 41.34 million people around concrete ways to address the climate emergency as quickly as possible.
