Africa has 36 million hectares under restoration, UN report finds
Worldwide, 252 million hectares in 149 countries are being restored, creating more than a million green jobs. Ethiopia has a UN flagship.
Nairobi — Nature is staging a comeback, according to a UN report launched at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17). It records 252 million hectares under restoration in 149 countries, the largest documented effort to date, creating more than a million green jobs.
Africa accounts for 36.3 million hectares, second only to Asia's 192.2 million. The report says the regional figures reflect land area and reporting capacity, not performance.
The report, Nature's comeback, comes halfway through the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) and is published by FAO, UNEP and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Five projects, including one in Ethiopia, were named UN World Restoration Flagships, and the recovery of mountain gorillas in East Africa is cited among its successes.
Where the gaps are
- Land restoration is nearly halfway to the target of 30% of degraded land under restoration by 2030.
- Rivers, wetlands and coasts lag far behind: only 11 million hectares of freshwater and 5.7 million of marine and coastal ecosystems are reported. Countries running wetland programmes rose from 8% to 54% since 2022.
- Annual restoration finance must more than quadruple. Doing so could create up to 32 million jobs by 2030.
Restoring 15% of the world's priority areas could store 30% of the carbon emitted since the industrial revolution and prevent 60% of expected extinctions, research cited in the report says.
Source: UN report via Premium Times, 29 October 2026.
