Enel Foundation announces a scientific partnership with Società Botanica Italiana

November 10, 2022

The World Science Day for Peace and Development, highlighting this year the importance of “Building Climate-Ready Communities, offers the perfect opportunity for Enel Foundation to announce its scientific partnership with Società Botanica Italiana (Italian Botanical Society), a national association for the promotion of botanical science. Partners will cooperate in studying with a multi temporal and multi scale perspective restoration potentials through tree-based interventions reversing ecosystem degradation as well as ensure the quality of projects eligible for climate change mitigation under the Paris Agreement.

As the time to prevent global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial averages is rapidly vanishing, the time frame for concrete mitigation actions falls within the next few years. In this context, the AFOLU (Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use) sector - through conservation, improved management and restoration of forests and other ecosystems - has a major mitigation potential, as highlighted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released April 2022.

Against this backdrop, the study will develop and test a methodological approach looking into the potential benefits of large-scale natural restoration actions using an upgraded version of the model developed for “The tree global restoration potential” report, published in Science in 2019. Based on climate earth models adopted by IPCC, the study will not only assess the restoration potential at current climate conditions, but will factor in the expected changes up to 2050, providing results and supporting action at regional and local levels.

Field research activities will integrate the analysis by testing direct seedling of native and pioneer trees approaches to support and strengthen mitigation action.