Nature Restoration Experts Call for Changes to Biodiversity Reporting

In an open letter published in the March 2026 issue of Plants, People, Planet, over 250 global scientists and nature restoration experts are calling for standardized, independent third-party verification of biodiversity gains in nature-based restoration projects. Biodiversity is inherently difficult to measure because, unlike pollution levels or physical property damage, it is not a single, quantifiable parameter but a complex ecological condition involving species composition, abundance, habitat quality, and ecosystem function. No universally accepted metric exists to define biodiversity loss or recovery. The experts are concerned that, despite major global commitments to ecosystem restoration under frameworks such as the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the Bonn Challenge, the Great Green Wall Initiative, and related initiatives, many large-scale projects are dominated by tree-planting efforts that often conflate reforestation with true ecological restoration. These and other concerns prompted experts to argue for changes to current evaluation methods that rely heavily on flawed implementation metrics like hectares planted or tree survival—which often mistake simple monoculture tree-planting for authentic ecological recovery and risk harming native ecosystems. Nature financing is a rapidly expanding market, growing elevenfold to over $100 billion between 2020 and 2024. The experts champion outcome-based, field-monitored metrics like The Global Biodiversity Standard (TGBS) to prevent greenwashing and ensure clear, transparent ecological returns on investments.