How we can restore one million hectares of degraded land | Bernardo Strassburg | TEDxBoston

Key Concepts:

• Agriculture's impact on the environment
• Mass extinction event
• Ecosystem restoration
• Machine learning for restoration planning
• Brazil's national restoration plan
• Global biodiversity framework
• Regrain: A profitable restoration business model
• Five-star restoration
• Carbon and biodiversity markets
• Open science initiative

1. The Environmental Impact of Agriculture:

• Humans invented agriculture 10,000 years ago, leading to widespread occupation of habitable land.
• Agriculture is the second largest source of global warming and a leading cause of mass extinction.
• Wild populations have declined by 73% in the last 50 years.
• An estimated 1 million species are under threat of extinction.

2. Personal Experience and the Potential for Restoration:

• The speaker's experience growing up in a tropical forest within Rio de Janeiro demonstrated the potential for ecosystem restoration.
• The Atlantic Forest biome has lost 85% of its natural cover, threatening species and ecosystem services for two-thirds of Brazil's population.

3. Scaling Restoration Through Science and Policy:

• The speaker teamed up with scientists at the International Institute for Sustainability to scale restoration efforts.
• Machine learning algorithms were developed to identify optimal restoration locations, increasing cost-effectiveness sixfold.
• This research informed Brazil's national restoration plan, committing the country to restoring 12 million hectares (the size of England).
• The approach was generalized to cover all ecosystems, resulting in a global analysis of priority areas for restoration.
• Restoring 30% of low-productivity degraded lands could capture 465 billion tons of CO2 (half the amount accumulated since the industrial revolution) and avert 71% of the projected mass extinction event.
• This target was incorporated into the global biodiversity framework signed by 196 countries in 2022, setting a 1 billion-hectare global restoration target.

4. Regrain: A Profitable Restoration Business Model:

• Inspired by the profitability of agribusiness, Regrain aims to create a profitable and scalable business case for nature restoration.
• The mission is to deliver 1 million hectares of "five-star restoration," focusing on restoring native ecosystems, their structure, functioning, and resilience.
• The 1 million-hectare target was inspired by the area needed to be visible from the moon.
• Regrain combines cutting-edge technologies with market-driven solutions.
• Optimization algorithms identify restoration potential on farms and the ideal blend of restoration methods.
• Regrain taps into carbon and biodiversity markets, combined with markets for forest products.
• In under two years, Regrain has secured hundreds of billions of dollars in investments and commercial agreements.
• Projects are proving that restoration can outcompete land uses like cattle ranching, offering investors double-digit rates of return.

5. Social and Environmental Impact:

• Regrain's projects are bringing life back to devastated areas, improving water quality, protecting biodiversity, and supporting local communities.
• Projects are located in a UNESCO natural heritage site (Discovery Coast), involving descendants of indigenous people in seedling production.

6. Collaboration and Open Science:

• The speaker emphasizes the need for collaboration and highlights the flourishing restoration sector.
• From 2025, an open science initiative will turn restoration interventions into integrated field experiments, using AI and multiple academic fields to learn from nature.

7. Conclusion:

• The speaker calls for inspiration from nature's resilience and the implementation of existing targets, policies, and business cases.
• The goal is to be the first generation to leave the planet better than they found it, marking a turning point after 10,000 years of environmental destruction.

Notable Quotes:

• "After 10,000 years of relentless destruction, let's bring about this historic turning point in our journey and be the first generation to leave our planet better than we encounter it."

Technical Terms:

• Five-star restoration: Restoring native ecosystems, their structure, functioning, and resilience for the long term (as defined by the Society for Ecological Restoration).
• Machine learning: A type of artificial intelligence that allows computer systems to learn from data without being explicitly programmed.
• Optimization algorithms: Mathematical procedures used to find the best possible solution to a problem, in this case, identifying optimal restoration locations and methods.
• Carbon markets: Trading systems where carbon credits are bought and sold, incentivizing emissions reductions and carbon sequestration.
• Biodiversity markets: Emerging markets that place a value on biodiversity and ecosystem services, creating financial incentives for conservation and restoration.