The Task Force on Best Practices, established under the leadership of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is a collaborative effort of currently 300 members from more than 100 global organizations, which supports capacity development and knowledge dissemination activities to help achieve the vision of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (UN Decade).

In 2021, the Task Force on Best Practices, the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature Commission on Ecosystem Management (IUCN CEM) partnered to lead an inclusive effort to draft ten guiding principles that underpin the full set of ecosystem restoration activities, in collaboration with the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF), EcoHealth Network, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). After the release of the principles and following the same participatory approach, the partnership continued to coordinate the development of the Standards of practice to guide ecosystem restoration to provide guidance on the application of the ten principles across all components of the restoration process in close collaboration with 15 organizations. The summary version of the Standards was published at the beginning of 2023. The final version will be released in the fourth quarter of 2023 after conducting targeted consultations with Indigenous Peoples.

Likewise, to facilitate knowledge sharing among practitioners, the Task Force has developed a Framework for the Dissemination of Good Restoration Practices. Embedded in the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring (FERM) registry, it allows for the documentation of good practices from restoration initiatives previously registered in the FERM registry. In addition, it includes a common search engine to link and facilitate access to good practices collected from various allied platforms including GoProFor, Panorama Solutions and WOCAT, besides the FERM registry.

In addition, during 2021-2022 the Task Force also conducted a global capacity needs assessment for restoration and prepared a Capacity, Knowledge and Learning Action Plan for the UN Decade. This action plan proposes eight key capacity- and knowledge-development initiatives to address capacity gaps of different stakeholder groups according to the results of the global capacity needs assessment, a stock-taking of knowledge products and capacity development initiatives, and targeted consultations. The Task Force will undertake efforts to establish partnerships and mobilize resources in order to enable the implementation of the eight initiatives from 2023-2030.

For any questions regarding the Task Force on Best Practices, kindly contact the following FAO focal points: 

·     Christophe Besacier, co-leader of the Task force, [email protected]

·     Vera Boerger, co-leader of the Task force, [email protected]

·     Andrea Romero, facilitator of the Task force, [email protected]

·     Cristiane Sater Melnik, facilitator of the Task force, [email protected]