This research provides an outlook of the agriculture, forestry and land use (AFOLU) sector targets and actions in the first round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), offering a snapshot of current ambition and presenting entry points for updating and enhancing the next round of NDCs due in 2020, through existing forest landscape restoration (FLR) commitments under the Bonn Challenge.

This paper highlights the opportunity for FLR to be scaled up as a climate mitigation and adaptation measure to enhance current NDCs and make the forest and land-based targets more robust, ambitious and measurable for clarity and transparency. The findings are based on an analysis of FLR-aligned targets across NDCs and comparing these with opportunities from the existing Bonn Challenge voluntary pledges, related to: 

• Robustness and measurable nature of FLR-aligned quantitative and qualitative targets and non-targets.
• Scope of FLR-aligned targets for accounting purposes: whether they are conditional, unconditional, economy-wide or sectoral targets.
• Mitigation or adaptation approaches and conditionality in FLR-aligned targets.