9 December, 2014 by Ruben G. Echeverría (comments)

CIAT http://www.ciatnews.cgiar.org/2014/12/09/initiative-20x20-getting-large-scale-land-restoration-on-track/

Last Sunday, government ministers from six Latin America countries joined a half dozen private investors at the Global Landscape Forum (held alongside the UN Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru) to launch Initiative 20×20. Led by the World Resources Institute and supported by CIAT, the initiative aims to get the restoration of 20 million hectares of degraded land on track by 2020. Representing CIAT at this event, I confirmed our full commitment to making the initiative a success and to working toward this end with WRI, the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), and all of the participating countries.

We first heard about the initiative from WRI’s Walter Vergara last February at a meeting on climate change held at the Inter-American Development Banks (IDB) in Washington (blog). Since then, we have worked closely with him on a range of tasks – from making high-level political contacts to providing data for a major study on the societal benefits of land restoration.

As 20×20 has taken shape in recent months, we have been extremely impressed with the speed and scale of its progress. Walter has done a fantastic job of building both political and financial support for this initiative. And he has also engaged very effectively with the researchers who are helping him build a strong business and science case. The fruits of Walter’s indefatigable efforts were evident at the standing-room-only launch event, where his enthusiasm proved highly contagious, creating a lot of interest in the work that lies ahead.

There are two things in particular about Initiative 20×20 that made CIAT’s decision to support it easy and natural. First, it fits our own strategy to build an eco-efficient future, which also has a 2020 timeframe, emphasizes land restoration, and sets ambitious, quantitative targets. Second and most important, 20×20 fits our vision for agriculture and rural land in Latin America. We believe this region’s destiny is to be – not only a food basket for the world – but also a major provider of ecosystem services, like biodiversity and climate change mitigation.