UN says forest restoration pledges far outpace work on the ground

The world has a "narrowing window" to restore forests that underpin food security and climate resilience, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned Tuesday, urging governments to make restoration a national priority.

In its State of the World's Forests report, the FAO said national, regional and global initiatives have pledged over the past two decades to put more than 1 billion hectares under restoration, but barely a fifth of that area is actually being restored. "Progress is uneven, and it is insufficient to meet growing global needs," the report said.

More than 489 million hectares of forest have been cleared since 1990, and an even larger area is degraded. Fires affect about 127 million hectares of forest every year, adding to pressure from farm expansion, climate change, pollution and the extraction of fossil fuels and other resources.

Forests cover 4.14 billion hectares, about a third of Earth's land surface. They store 714 gigatons of carbon, host up to 80% of land-based biodiversity and support the livelihoods of nearly one-third of the world's people. The report estimated that restoring 1 billion hectares would generate $1.8 trillion in benefits a year.

FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said delayed or poorly designed restoration "will increase long-term costs, exacerbate inequalities and risk locking landscapes into unsustainable trajectories."

This brief is based on reporting by Jonathan Watts, published Sept. 29, 2026, in The Guardian. Read the original: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/29/un-warns-of-narrowing-window-to-restore-worlds-forests