2 September 2011, WRI News - A global effort to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested lands by 2020 is being launched in Bonn, Germany. The announcement comes during the Bonn Challenge Ministerial Roundtable, where a select group of government officials, business leaders, and international forest experts are gathering to catalyze support for global forest and landscape restoration.

At the meeting, Göran Persson, former Prime Minister of Sweden, will propose a new Global Restoration Council to help galvanize action for forest and landscape restoration and build support to achieve The Bonn Challenge. The Council will be facilitated by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Restoring 150 million hectares of land reflects a significant contribution to implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Target 15 and the REDD-plus agreement of the UNFCCC. The CBD Target 15 calls for the restoration of at least 15 percent of degraded ecosystems by 2020, and the REDD-Plus goal is to slow, halt and reverse forest cover and carbon loss, including through the enhancement of forest carbon stocks.