In Desa’a Forest, thousands of local people have joined efforts to bring damaged hillsides back to life—and the work has now been named a United Nations restoration flagship. The forest lies in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, where years of conflict have made both daily life and long-term conservation harder.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recognized the initiative, officially called “Restoring Desa’a landscape: Bringing the Great Rift Valley Back to Life,” at the UN Biodiversity Conference in Yerevan, Armenia. The designation is meant to draw attention to restoration efforts and offer projects technical help, monitoring and support in sharing their work. “Restoration, when it’s done well, brings stakeholders together because they’re working together to find solutions to common problems,” said Doreen Lynn Robinson, UNEP’s deputy director of the Ecosystems Division.
The results so far are substantial. The project has restored more than 23,000 hectares, or about 57,000 acres, of degraded land. It is estimated to have prevented 500,000 metric tons of soil erosion, while restored areas have also seen more water soak into the soil.
The need is urgent. When the project began in 2016, an estimated 74% of Desa’a Forest had already disappeared. Today, about 70% of the forest that remains is considered degraded. The high-altitude Afromontane forest stores carbon and provides habitat for endangered Ethiopian wolves, gelada monkeys and giant lobelias. Damage to forest cover can also affect cloud formation and rainfall, raising the risk of drought and food insecurity.
For nearby communities, the forest is tied to everyday needs. Families depend on the land for farming, grazing livestock, water and fuel. Yemane Gebru, the project manager, said population growth and the demand for more farmland have pushed cultivation beyond what the land can support. As fertile topsoil washes away, fields become less productive, adding pressure to people already facing poverty. Gebru estimated that nearly 56% of Tigray’s population lives below the poverty line, on less than $2 a day.
The nonprofit WeForest began the restoration effort by working through discussions with residents. At first, asking people to stop cutting trees or move livestock out of the forest was difficult, said Aklilu Negussie Mekuria, WeForest’s country director for Ethiopia. Over time, the project says, community members took the lead in planting and conservation, sometimes bringing thousands of people together. Mekuria said the team listens to residents and learns from their knowledge.
But conflict remains a serious threat. Years of armed fighting have disrupted restoration and devastated communities, and renewed fighting reported in September 2026 could put the project’s longer-term goals at risk. The UN recognition cannot end that danger, but it may bring added technical and public support to the work. In a forest where recovery depends on both healthy land and the people who live beside it, keeping those community partnerships strong will matter as much as planting trees.