IUCN Brazil held the Latin-American Summit of Investments in Forest and Landscape Restoration (Cúpula Latino-Americana de Investimentos em Restauração de Paisagens e Florestas) in Rio de Janeiro on June 2nd, 2016. With the Museum of Tomorrow as a host to the Summit, several participants from more than 10 countries were able to gather and discuss on the main challenges that are confronted when working on the scaling up of restoration of forest and productive landscapes. While it can be maintained that many flagship efforts led by civil society organizations, governments, academia and the private sector already exist within the region, it is yet essential to understand that there are important factors that would further enable the scaling up of restoration activities within the region.

All participants envision an appropriate land use that recoups and maintains landscape functionality. To this end, the participants proposed and discussed the relevance of several aspects that are important for scaling restoration. Among these issues, the participants highlighted the awareness of society, the need to maximize current channels of financing, financial innovation, the inclusion and participation of multiple sectors in a same territory, the incidence of good practice in multiple private sectors, among others.

Victor Hugo Inchausty, Regional Director of IUCN, gathered information on the priorities to scale restoration and indicated that a summary of the proposed activities would guide the approach to donors and project financing in the region. In addition, the summary would set the standard to support the development of activities and projects focused on the scaling of restoration. Mr. Inchausty also made a call for a continued dialogue with the participants to enrich the content of the points, and invited all to incorporate the points in their work on restoration and form alliances to spread the best practices for sustainable landscape management and the economic activities that occur within them.