The Accelerating Innovative Monitoring for Nature Restoration (AIM4NatuRe), a US$ 9 million project, was launched on April 22, 2025, during the Earth Day event in Rome. It is spearheaded by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and funded by the United Kingdom. It builds upon FAO’s AIM4Forests Programme; however, it expands beyond forests for a broader focus on nature restoration.
Purpose and Goals
According to FAO Director-General QU Dongyu, AIM4NatuRe is expected to bring fresh momentum to global ecosystem restoration by offering countries technical support and tools needed to monitor progress effectively. By ensuring countries have the right resources, the initiative aims to turn restoration promises into reality, delivering lasting benefits for both people and the environment throughout the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and beyond.
Scope and Approach
AIM4NatuRe enhances FAO’s AIM4Forest programme by contributing to the development of a global dataset on ecosystem restoration. It would help countries to strengthen their capacity and apply advanced technologies to track and report progress towards Target 2 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which calls for restoring at least 30 percent of degraded ecosystem by 2030.
The initiative takes a broad approach to ecosystem restoration, encompassing reforestation, restoration of degraded farmland, rehabilitation of wetlands, and revival of grasslands and marine ecosystems.
Why Ecosystem Restoration Matters
Ecosystem restoration is a vital nature-based solution to tackle biodiversity loss, climate change, and land degradation. Globally about one billion hectares have been pledged for restoration. This effort could deliver up to one-third of the climate mitigation needed to keep global warming below 2 °C by 2030, while also supporting food security and livelihoods.
Despite growing commitments, many countries still lack the technical tools and capacity to effectively monitor and report ecosystem restoration. According to a recent capacity needs assessment survey by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Secretariat, around 80 per cent of responding countries reported they were unable to collect the necessary data to track national restoration progress.
Tools and Resources
The FAO has released a new publication titled Enabling Consistent Reporting and Monitoring for Freshwater (Inland Waters) Restoration under Target 2. It is designed to help countries meet GBF Target 2 requirements by improving their ability to report and monitor restoration efforts in inland water ecosystems. It offers a specific definition of ‘area under restoration’ for freshwater ecosystems and provides practical tools for consistent reporting of these often-overlooked ecosystems.
Technology-Driven Monitoring
At the Resumed Session of the CBD, the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) in Rome, the member parties recognised the need for greater support to implement Target 2 and invited the FAO to take the lead. AIM4NatuRe addresses this challenge by offering countries advanced technology and capacity-building support, to help countries develop a unified global dataset on restoration efforts.
This would enable nations to advance beyond general pledges and produce reliable data on their progress, promoting greater transparency and national ownership of restoration outcomes.
To support effective data sharing and analysis, AIM4NatuRe would focus on data interoperability. This involves setting standardised formats and protocols to align national data with a global reporting system. The approach would improve transparency, ensure comparability, and ease the reporting workload for countries. The initiative also provides practical tools and guidance, such as the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring, to help countries collect, analyse, and report data in a clear and accessible way.
The initiative places strong emphasis on supporting indigenous peoples in monitoring biocentric nature restoration—a holistic approach that centres on the well-being of all life within an ecosystem. A pilot project, in collaboration with FAO’s Indigenous Peoples Unit, would be launched in Brazil and Peru to advance this effort.
AIM4NatuRe builds on the success of UK funded AIM4Forests programme, which uses advanced technology for forest monitoring and has trained individuals in 14 countries. Expanding beyond forests, AIM4NatuRe adopts a comprehensive approach by supporting restoration monitoring across all ecosystems. Its capacity-building efforts include the Forest Monitoring for Climate Action e-learning programme, which has already engaged over 15,700 online learners.
Collaboration and Community Engagement
At the AIM4NatuRe launch event, experts and community representatives highlighted the initiative’s role in driving effective and inclusive ecosystem restoration. Yelena Finegold, who leads FAO’s work on restoration monitoring, outlined AIM4NatuRe’s focus on integrated, interoperable data systems and emphasised the importance of building capacity in data-poor regions through digital tools and training.
Christina Tzavochariadou from the CBD Secretariat noted that the initiative aligns with the GBF by accelerating implementation through partnerships, shared learning, and data-driven action.
Indigenous voices were central to the discussion. Yon Fernandez De Larrinoa, Chief of FAO’s Indigenous Peoples Unit, and Iran Ferreira from Brazil underscored that for indigenous peoples, restoration is a deeply rooted cultural practice, a way of life that safeguards memory, territory, and the future. Mari Silva from Peru added that in the Amazon region, restoration is led by communities, linking environmental protection with cultural preservation and youth empowerment.
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