Green growth, landscape restoration and climate-change mitigation go hand-in-hand, says Dieterle

Green growth is essential for restoring forested landscapes and combating climate change, according to ITTO’s Executive Director, Dr Gerhard Dieterle.

Speaking at the Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany, earlier this week, Dr Dieterle said that green economic growth is needed to drive forest landscape restoration, which, in turn, would help conserve biodiversity while generating employment, storing carbon and ensuring a sustainable supply of timber. Sustainably produced timber would provide climate-change mitigation benefits in addition to carbon storage because it can be used to substitute for fossil products. “Such substitution benefits could eventually exceed those of all other forest-related measures combined,” he said.