Generation Restoration: A global call to action on World Environment
Day 2024
Today we celebrate the World Environment Day
[https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/], where the global community
emphasises the need to restore ecosystems. This year's theme, 'Our
Land. Our Future’ highlights the importance of reversing land
degradation, a situation impacting nearly 3.2 billion people, or 40 %
of the world's population
[https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/did-you-know/key-messages] and
threatening food security, livelihoods, and biodiversity. This shows
why changes in the way of life are needed from this generation to
ensure a more balanced earth.

Leveraging data is essential for supporting effective restoration.
Interestingly, trees play a big part in this data extraction through
the so-called ‘Wood Wide Web’
[https://erc.europa.eu/projects-statistics/science-stories/unearthing-social-network-trees],
a complex network of fungi and bacteria which exchange nutrients
between trees to support their health and ecosystem stability.
Scientists were inspired by this natural way of sharing data and
therefore created Restor [https://restor.eco/], an online digital
platform that is built to show the progress on global restoration
projects. 

While Restor is visualising research data, the data.europa.eu
[https://data.europa.eu/en] portal has a category dedicated
to ‘environment’
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets?locale=en&categories=ENVI&page=1],
with over 165.000 datasets, including information on land use,
biodiversity, and climate change. For example, the Irish government
published new data on their recycling points for electronic devices
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/bd029526-b914-4a88-9c58-db8ba38d3f1e?locale=en],
following the European Union Regulations of 2014
[https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/waste-electrical-and-electronic-equipment-weee_en].
These datasets are valuable for policymakers and stakeholders,
offering insights that guide sustainable practices and monitor the
restoration progress.

By fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation and making data
publicly available, policymakers and stakeholders can drive
significant progress in ecosystem restoration. Learn more about how
you can contribute to Generation Restoration
[https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/] and explore relevant
datasets on data.europa.eu
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets?locale=en] to support informed
decision-making in environmental restoration efforts.

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Publication Date/Time
2024-06-05T08:00:00+00:00
Restoring ecosystems through data sharing for a sustainable future