A woman is planting a tree picked to support local biodiversity. Photo by Axel Fassio/CIFOR-ICRAF

One of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s headline commitments is the quest to restore 30% of degraded land by 2030. And there’s significant momentum already towards this goal, with public and private sector efforts across the globe to increase tree cover.

But simply getting as many trees in the ground as fast as possible will not give us the broader gains to which the target aspires. “Unfortunately, the reality behind many of these [restoration] projects is monocultures of non-native species that lack biodiversity and are not helping to recover biodiversity: and actually, in some cases, they’re harming rather than helping,” said David Bartholomew, a project manager at Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), during a presentation at this year’s UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP16) in Cali, Colombia.

“We need to change this: we want to see [landscapes] that are rich in biodiversity, with lots of species complexity,” said Bartholomew. “It’s really critical that we start to shift how tree planting and other restoration projects are done to make that happen.”

To that end, BGCI has partnered with a number of international organizations, including the Society for Ecological Restoration, the Plan Vivo Foundation, TRAFFIC, the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) and Ecosia – alongside in-country partners in six countries across the globe – to develop a new certification tool called the Global Biodiversity Standard (TGBS), which was launched at CBD COP16 at the Cali Botanic Garden on 15 November, 2024.

The GBS is an international initiative that provides a benchmark for nature-based solutions, seeking to ensure that restoration and agroforestry practices are protecting, restoring and enhancing biodiversity. It works by conducting surveys and scoring applicants against eight criteria. It provides recognition of positive impacts on biodiversity, incentives and knowledge to improve and promote best practices.

Ongoing mentoring from local and international restoration and biodiversity experts then helps projects to continually improve their impacts. “The TGBS mentoring component ensures continual improvement in nature-based solutions, enhancing outcomes for biodiversity, ecosystems and communities,” said Eliane Ubalijoro, CIFOR-ICRAF’s CEO. “CIFOR-ICRAF is committed to sharing knowledge that empowers smallholder farmers to plant trees for optimal results.”

In fact, she shared, collaboration on the TGBS inspired CIFOR-ICRAF scientists’ development of the Global Useful Native Trees and Tree Globally Observed Environmental Ranges databases. “These resources guide tree planting projects globally, considering diverse species mixes that are suited to both community needs and changing climate conditions,” said Ubalijoro.

Peter Wise Jackson, the president of the Missouri Botanical Garden, co-chair of the Global Partnership for Plant Conservation and incoming BGCI chair, shared his enthusiasm for the initiative. “This is a very exciting time to have the standard in place, which will have – I have no doubt – a very significant impact worldwide in the quality and success of plant conservation and ecosystem conservation programmes and measures,” he said.

Leonardo Tavares Salgado, the director of scientific research at the Rio de Janeiro Botanic Garden who spoke on behalf of Brazil’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, highlighted the initiative’s alignment with international commitments and Brazil’s priorities. “The GBS is a vital step toward integrating biodiversity-positive practice into strategies aimed at effectively restoring degraded lands,” he said, “and will contribute greatly towards wider objectives for biodiversity and climate.”

During the launch, two sites – in Bolivia and Colombia, respectively – were officially certified under the Standard, whilst seven more from India, Hong Kong, Madagascar, and Kenya were acknowledged for their pledges to undergo TGBS assessment, and one site in Uganda received a special Advanced certification.

Dame Jane Goodall, whose institute supports the Uganda project, shared that the TGBS “reminds us of our responsibility to protect our ecosystems, not just for our own survival, but for the future of every living creature with whom we share this planet. My hope is that many more organisations will adopt the measures laid out by the Standard and ensure we regenerate the planet for future generations.”

Representatives from various TGBS hubs also shared key challenges and opportunities from piloting the use of the Standard in their respective locations. “We have a big challenge ahead in confronting biodiversity loss and we also have the challenge of raising the bar: we have been doing restoration projects with the wrong species,” said Gabriela Orihuela, the coordinator of the Peruvian TGBS hub at Huarango Nature. “Now, we have to use the technology and the innovation that we have, alongside local and traditional knowledge and put it together. And I think we’re going in the right direction to do that.”

Echoing those sentiments, Gemma Harper – CEO of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee – closed the event, saying, “This is a genuinely inclusive initiative, from the global to the local and the local back to the global. It is inclusive of communities and of different knowledge and evidence. It has vision at its heart. It’s also genuinely collaborative across society… It represents science, and most importantly, it represents hope for the path.”