Make the ocean blue again: UN recognizes World Restoration Flagships in East Africa, Mexico, and Spain

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) have named the first World Restoration Flagships for this year, tackling pollution, unsustainable exploitation and invasive species in three continents. These initiatives are restoring almost five million hectares of marine ecosystems – an area about the size of Costa Rica, which co-hosts with France the UN Ocean Conference.

The three new flagships comprise restoration initiatives in the coral-rich Mozambique channel, more than sixty of Mexico’s islands and the Mar Menor in Spain, Europe’s first ecosystem with a legal personality. Winning initiatives were announced at an event during the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France, and are now eligible for UN support.

FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said: “The climate crisis, unsustainable exploitation practices and nature resources shrinking are affecting our blue ecosystems, harming marine life and threatening the livelihoods of dependent communities. These new World Restoration Flagships show that halting and reversing degradation is not only possible, but also beneficial to planet and people."

“After decades of using the ocean as a global dump site, we are witnessing a great shift towards restoration. We will not make the ocean blue again by pouring tears into it, but rather through mobilizing all actors,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. “These World Restoration Flagships show how biodiversity protection, climate action, and economic development are deeply interconnected. Yet as vast as the ocean is, so must be our ambition to promote restoration initiatives.”

The World Restoration Flagship awards are part of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration – led by UNEP and FAO – which aims to prevent, halt, and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. The awards track notable initiatives that support global commitments to restore one billion hectares – an area larger than China – by 2030.

The Northern Mozambique Channel

This small region boasts 35 per cent of the coral reefs found in the entire Indian Ocean and is considered as its seedbed and nursery. Agricultural run-offs, overfishing, and  extreme weather and climate events threaten this economically and ecologically important stretch of ocean.

Comoros, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Tanzania are already working together to manage, protect, and restore almost 87,200 hectares of interconnected land- and seascapes, benefitting both nature and people.

Actions undertaken today to maintain it include restoration of blue and green forests by creating interconnected restoration corridors, mangroves, and coral reef ecosystems, and improving fisheries management. These efforts, championed by the NGO (WWF) and UN agencies alike, encompass multiple levels and sites, spanning both land and seascapes.

With adequate financing, 4.85 million hectares are expected to be restored by 2030. This is expected to improve communities’ well-being and socio-economic development, including a 30 per cent increase in household income in target areas, and create over 2,000 jobs and 12 community-based enterprises, while integrating indigenous practices.

The restoration is also expected to increase these countries’ capacity to absorb carbon dioxide (CO₂) and help tackle extreme weather and climate events.   Madagascar’s mangroves already store more than 300 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e), comparable to the annual electricity use in over 62 million homes in the United States.

Mexico’s seabird islands

Recognized worldwide as vital hotspots for biodiversity, particularly for being home to one third of the world’s seabird species, the Mexican islands had long suffered the negative impacts of invasive species.

Twenty-six years ago, Mexico’s Commission for Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) and the civil society organisation Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas (GECI) launched an ambitious, comprehensive ecological restoration program, in collaboration with partners from government agencies, civil society, academia, and local communities.

Efforts include removing 60 populations of invasive species and restoring seabird colonies, as well as forest landscape restoration. Coupled with implementing biosecurity protocols, the comprehensive programme restores the island’s endemic richness and supports local island communities.

Thanks to restoration efforts, 85 per cent of formerly extirpated seabird colonies have returned to the islands, including species at risk of extinction. The initiative will complete the restoration of over 100,000 hectares by the end of the decade – equivalent to almost a million hectares of continental land in terms of biodiversity value — encompassing almost 100 islands, and protecting over 300 endemic species of mammals, birds, reptiles and birds.

An enduring relationship with local communities ensures their involvement in the initiative and their benefits: enhanced resilience facing extreme weather events, sustainable fisheries, and ecotourism. There is also human health improvement after the removal of invasive species.

Spain: The Mar Menor lagoon

With its famously transparent water, the Mar Menor lagoon is essential to the region’s identity, local tourism, small-scale fishing and unique flora and fauna, including water birds. Surrounded by one of Europe’s key agricultural regions, it is the continent’s largest saltwater lagoon, and its biodiversity has successfully adapted to conditions of extreme temperatures, high salinity and low levels of nutrients.

However, nitrate discharges from intensive agricultural activity, as well as other polluting land and marine activities, have led to the lagoon’s rapid degradation, including the emergence of damaging algal blooms.

A positive turn came when over half a million citizens mobilized in response to episodes of “green soup” and fish kills and supported a Popular Legislative Initiative to make the Mar Menor a legal entity with rights. Actions were also promoted from the justice system to demand the application of environmental liability regulations and possible criminal liability into the pollution.

The Spanish Government launched an ambitious intervention through the Framework of Priority Actions to Recover the Mar Menor (MAPMM), aimed at restoring the natural dynamics and solving the problem from the source, articulated in 10 lines of action and 28 measures, by creating wetlands, supporting sustainable agriculture, constructing a wide green belt around it, cleaning up abandoned and polluted mining sites, improving flood risk management, increasing its biodiversity, and sustaining social participation.

The total area targeted for restoration amounts to 8,770 hectares, representing 7 per cent of the entire basin flowing into the Mar Menor. This area would support Spain's climate change objectives, including its overall national target of restoring 870,000 hectares by 2030 and absorbing more than 82,256 tonnes CO₂ by 2040 – the equivalent of the annual greenhouse gas emissions from almost 14,000 people in Spain.

World Restoration Flagships are chosen as the best examples of ongoing, large-scale and long-term ecosystem restoration by a group of ecosystem restoration experts from the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration’s network. Selection follows a thorough review process with 15 criteria, embodying the 10 Restoration Principles of the UN Decade. 

In 2022, the inaugural ten World Restoration Flagships were recognized as part of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, followed with the recognition of seven initiatives in 2024.

About the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

The UN General Assembly has declared 2021–2030 as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Led by the UN Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, together with the support of partners, it is designed to prevent, halt, and reverse the loss and degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It aims at reviving billions of hectares, covering terrestrial as well as aquatic ecosystems. A global call to action, the UN Decade draws together political support, scientific research, and financial muscle to massively scale up restoration.  

About the UN World Restoration Flagships

Countries have already promised to restore 1 billion hectares – an area larger than China – as part of their commitments to the Paris climate agreement, the targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the Land Degradation Neutrality targets and the Bonn Challenge. However, little is known about the progress or quality of this restoration. With the World Restoration Flagships, the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is honouring the best examples of large-scale and long-term ecosystem restoration in any country or region, embodying the 10 Restoration Principles of the UN Decade. Progress of all World Restoration Flagships will be transparently monitored through the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring, the UN Decade’s platform for keeping track of global restoration efforts.