News published 12 June 2025, updated 27 June

Ecosystem restoration projects hold a large potential to protect, enhance, and restore biodiversity. There is, however, a lack of standardized criteria for accurately measuring and quantifying the results in terms of promoting biodiversity enhancement. As a result, many climate and biodiversity interventions, including tree planting, land management and agroforestry practices, fail to deliver positive outcomes and can inadvertently cause harm to ecosystems and local communities.

In response, Botanic Gardens Conservation International, the Society for Ecological Restoration and a coalition of global biodiversity experts developed and launched The Global Biodiversity Standard (TGBS) to act as a robust framework for evaluating best practices that promote ecosystem restoration to achieve real results for biodiversity.

The TGBS certification is based on four pillars: ecosystem integrity, level of protection, land management and social benefits, which guided the adoption of eight criteria to assess whether projects implement activities that improve biodiversity and guarantee long-term management at the sites where they are implemented. This integrated approach ensures comprehensive assessments and tangible results for biodiversity and aligns practices with the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration Standards.

Watch again the webinar on TGBS. This webinar will guided participants through the application process and shared answers to some frequently asked questions. The webinar was delivered in Portuguese