The Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) approach, which is still in its nascent stages of development, is rapidly gaining attention as a more appropriate way to restore both degraded forests as well as the surrounding degraded landscape. The great value of this approach is that it integrates forest restoration actions with the desirable objectives of the landscape, and it is undertaken with the full participation of the people who will have a role in the management of the restored areas over the longer term.

REDD+ is an important instrument for many developing countries in the tropics to fulfill their commitments under the Paris Agreement. Accordingly, various countries have considered it in their current (Intended) Nationally Determined Contributions as to shape the future pathway for addressing the 2.0°C goal.

The Little Sustainable Landscapes Book aims to clarify and disseminate sustainable landscape management methods, and to catalyse their implementation across private and public sectors worldwide.

On 16 November 2016, the fourth annual Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) once again brought together diverse stakeholders working in global landscapes. While the 2015 GLF event in Paris closed with promise due to newly agreed upon global climate and development commitments, 2016’s widespread social, environmental and political instability transmits an urgency for collaborative engagement to turn commitment into action.

The Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) entered a new era in December 2017 when it successfully launched its next five-year phase, centered on building a worldwide movement to connect and engage one billion people around sustainable land use.

The inaugural meeting of this ‘new’ GLF was held from 19-20 December at the World Conference Center in Bonn, Germany, where the movement will take up residence over the next five years.

Building on previous finance-focused Global Landscapes Forum events held in London in 2015 and 2016, the GLF 2018 Investment Case Symposium continued the multi-stakeholder conversation around sustainable financial solutions at landscape level.

The third GLF Investment Case was held on May 30, 2018 at the International Finance Corporation in Washington DC.

Forest landscape restoration activities are often misunderstood as involving high upfront costs and low rates of return. To address this gap in knowledge, this report presents a cost-benefit framework for accounting for the ecosystem services and economic impacts of forest landscape restoration activities in a way that allows the results to be structured to inform multiple types of restoration decision-making that can help decision makers understand the trade-offs of different restoration scenarios.

The two responses to climate change - mitigating emissions and adapting to impacts - are often pursued as separate actions. But some ecosystem-based responses, like forest landscape restoration, can serve as both mitigation and adaptation tools. A new report from IUCN examines where and how restoration can serve mitigation and adaptation goals across the world and in key countries.

The Government of the UK and Norway have supported the production of an independent report to help inform the decision-making process on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) at the upcoming United Nations climate change negotiations in Doha in December 2012.

Continuing depletion of forest resources, particularly in tropical developing countries, has turned vast areas of intact ecosystems into urbanized and agricultural lands. The degree of degradation varies, but in most cases, the ecosystem functions and the ability to provide a variety of ecosystem services are severely impaired. In addition to many other challenges, successful forest restoration of these lands requires considerable resources and funding, but the ecological, economic and social benefits have the potential to outweigh the investment.

"Landscape approaches" seek to provide tools and concepts for allocating and managing land to achieve social, economic, and environmental objectives in areas where agriculture, mining, and other productive land uses compete with environmental and biodiversity goals. Here we synthesize the current consensus on landscape approaches. This is based on published literature and a consensus-building process to define good practice and is validated by a survey of practitioners.

Key points

• Global availability of land ownership and land deals data is patchy, but, when available, it has been used by individual citizens, entrepreneurs, civil society, and journalists.

• Over the last decade, a number of responsible data lessons have been learned. These lessons can provide guidance on how to balance transparency and privacy and on how to draw research conclusions from partial data.