Ecosystem restoration and conservation are crucial for protecting Earth’s biodiversity and achieving climate mitigation goals. Restoration has the potential to draw down about 30 percent of accumulated global carbon emissions and is a key component of many nations’ climate mitigation goals by 2030. However, the biggest impacts are often felt most acutely at the local scale and where people depend on biodiversity for their livelihoods. Protecting and rebuilding ecosystems are therefore local challenges. But the right scientific data and resources are often inaccessible, and where they are available, they are spread across a mix of outlets.

As a global ecological research group, Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich knows the benefits of access to data and also the pitfalls of data when not paired with local knowledge. They set out to create a unified platform to democratize ecological data to ensure that the best restoration data is created by, for, and with restoration practitioners.

With the right data, along with full transparency, local restoration projects can now connect to an ever-growing network of restoration action. Restoration takes many forms, from the protection of land so that vegetation can flourish to holistic soil management to agroforestry to tree planting to wetlands protection, and others. It is also practiced in many ways, whether through indigenous cosmologies, as a part of regenerative agriculture, within supply chains, or via backyard experiments. Regardless of whether we are currently practicing restoration, we all have a ‘land footprint’ that extends beyond our carbon emissions to our impacts on soil, biodiversity, and natural systems. It is our goal to make it possible for us all to understand that land footprint and the decisions associated with it. Through this process, we aim to foster understanding, and action to regenerate what has been degraded, and to make that will benefit natural ecosystems. Every one of us can make a difference, one decision at a time.

Founded by ETH Zurich’s Crowther Lab and developed in collaboration with Google, Restor was a finalist for the Royal Foundation’s 2021 Earthshot Prize and is an official partner of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.