Mitigation of climate change: sustainable use of land resources is essential

Abstract

The Final Statement of the international conference “Global Forest and Tree Restoration”, organized by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei with the collaboration of FIDAF, other Italian scientific academies and FAO strongly reaffirms the urgency to act in order to mitigate climate change and indicates the restoration of ecosystems, with particular regard to forests as the most pressing action to be undertaken. The World Economic Forum (WEF), listing the 10 key facts about climate change, reports that the expansion of agricultural areas is one of the major causes of the deforestation that has led to the acceleration of climate change. The sustainable use of land resources is therefore essential to halt the expansion of agricultural areas in order to stop deforestation. Close collaboration between governmental bodies, intergovernmental organizations, scientific institutions, civil society and the private sector is needed to support ecosystem design, planning, management and monitoring.