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A Decade to Re-up on Restoration Globally

May 31, 2021

Point Blue Sierra Nevada Group Director Ryan Burnett restoring Sierra meadow habitat with his son and son’s classmate during a Point Blue STRAW restoration day.

Editor’s note: In support of the UN’s Decade on Ecosystem Restoration Point Blue has crafted our own declaration and commitments that can be found here. We plan to add to these commitments over time, as we assess ways of increasing the pace, scale, and impact of our climate-smart conservation.

The decade 2021-2030 has been designated by the United Nations as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (the Decade hereafter) and Point Blue is proud to support and contribute to this global wave of united energy around restoring the planet. We invite you to celebrate, get on board, and/or re-up your commitment to ecosystem restoration starting on June 5th, 2021, the official launch day, and throughout the next ten years.

We helped kick off the Decade with inspiration from a virtual screening of “A Simple Question: The Story of STRAW” complete with live Q&A with program Founder Laurette Rogers, Filmmaker David Donnenfield, and Pacific Coast and Central Valley Director Tom Gardali (watch the recording here).

We’ll keep up the momentum by sharing more events and actions you can participate in throughout the rest of the year and the Decade. Keep your eye on this and our events page and sign up on our email list to get alerts straight to your inbox.

The primary objective of the UN Decade is for this designation to help achieve the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals through a global effort focused on inspiring and supporting governments, UN agencies, NGOs, communities and individuals to collaborate and develop the appropriate skill sets for catalyzing and successfully implementing restoration initiatives across the world.

We are thrilled that the UN has recognized the importance of restoration–a practice we have been pursuing and refining for decades. For years, Point Blue has been ahead of the curve in how we operate–prioritizing community involvement, science-driven planning, and strong, diverse partnerships. We have been thinking about and working on many of the objectives outlined in the UN Decade on Ecosystem restoration for a long time and are eager to continue pursuing these objectives with the support of a global partner.

Point Blue STRAW Education Manager Gina Graziano leads students in an activity to remember the five parts of the bay before they begin their restoration day at Shollenberger Marsh in Petaluma, CA just outside Point Blue headquarters.

Specific objectives for the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration overlap significantly with Point Blue’s 2019-2024 Strategic Plan, linking to our strategic objectives for climate smart restoration, ocean conservation, nature-based adaptation interventions, soil health, natural and working lands stewardship, and more.

A Point Blue Volunteer Biologist holding a seabird chick while doing scientific monitoring of the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. We are the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s science partner in the ongoing restoration of this island ecosystem.

The UN Decade is synergistic with local, state, and national restoration and conservation efforts that Point Blue has been involved with:

  • The SF Bay community has united around the concept that as much tidal marsh restoration as possible needs to occur explicitly by 2030 for maximum protection against sea level rise and biodiversity benefits and passed Measure AA to allocate $500 million over ten years to support the effort.
  • In Governor Newsom’s Executive Order in the fall of 2020, he aligned the state of California with a global commitment to conserve 30% of the planet by 2030–an effort known as 30×30.
  • Point Blue is proud that our CEO and CSO (Chief Science Officer) are participating in the CA Biodiversity Network, a group directly informing the state’s 30×30 efforts and broader biodiversity goals
  • In 2021 Point Blue became a Technical Partner for the World Resource Institute’s Initiative 20×20 which is a country-led effort seeking to change the dynamics of land degradation in Latin America and the Caribbean.

We are excited to contribute to the UN Decade goals programmatically over the next ten years across the entire organization in multifaceted ways on natural and working lands, in the ocean, through nature-based coastal adaptation, and more. As part of our participation we have crafted our own declaration and commitments. View them here. We plan to add to these commitments over time, as we assess ways of increasing the pace, scale, and impact of our climate-smart conservation.

Learn more about our restoration efforts and how to get involved by visiting our Restoration Work page.

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