Faiths for Land network: connecting faith communities to restoration

Faiths for Land believes the world's faith communities are among the most powerful and least supported forces for healing the earth. They steward roughly 8% of the world's habitable land and hold the trust of billions of people, and over the past decade faith-led efforts have grown an estimated 300 million trees, including around 8,000 hectares of faith-owned land restored in Kenya through partner programs. Money raised in this campaign goes directly to mobilizing and equipping these communities to restore land across traditions and geographies, so that both people and the places they hold sacred can thrive.

The challenge

The will to restore is already everywhere; the structure to support it is not. Only 28% of faith groups have a formal restoration policy and 76% report technical capacity gaps. Most have land, volunteers and motivation but lack the training and funding to act on it, and fewer than 20% of faith-led restoration initiatives are monitored at all, so much of this work goes uncounted and unfunded. For two years this network has been built through the UNCCD's G20 Global Land Initiative, yet it has had no permanent home, and the momentum risks being lost.

What It Does

• Connect. Faith organizations with technical partners, funders, and restoration networks. The Working Group process built relationships with WWF BVP, WRI, Trillion Trees, World Vision, UNEP Faith for Earth, and others. Faiths for Land becomes the permanent home for this network, giving technical and funding partners a single entry point to the faith restoration sector.
• Build capacity. Through training, peer learning, and shared tools. The Faith4Land programme already produced a workshop curriculum, webinar series (now being converted into online course modules), facilitator guides, and action-planning resources developed with leading restoration partners. Faiths for Land will host the completed Faith4Land Masterclass as a free online course at www.faithsforland.org, ensuring these assets remain accessible and continue to develop rather than sitting on an archived project page.
• Amplify. Faith voices in global land and climate policy processes. The Call to Action, signed by over 100 organizations, and organized faith participation at CBD COP16 and UNCCD COP16 demonstrated growing visibility. Faiths for Land coordinates ongoing faith engagement at UNCCD COPs, advocates for recognition of faith-based contributions in restoration targets, and provides a self-organizing structure that reduces the burden on the Secretariat.
• Track and communicate. The collective impact of faith-led restoration globally. Faith groups have planted an estimated 300+ million trees in the last decade, but monitoring data exists for fewer than 20% of initiatives. Faiths for Land will aggregate member data and communicate results to funders, policymakers, and the public.

Our goal, and how funds are used.

This campaign funds the operationalisation of Faiths for Land post UNCCD COP17, where, together with the G20 Global Land Initiative and WWF, we will release the Faith4Land Masterclass as a free online course. Built with leading restoration scientists, the Masterclass teaches any faith community how to plan, plant, monitor and sustain a restoration project.

Your support funds

The coordination time post-COP17 that connects member communities to funders and technical partners, the website that hosts the free course, and member engagement. COP17 is also where Faiths for Land makes its transition from a informal working group of NGOs under the G20 GLI to an independent, multi-faith civil society coalition.

Tracking impact. We will aggregate restoration data from member communities and report it to funders and policymakers, building the monitoring layer this sector has been missing. We will track how many communities are trained through the Masterclass, how many partners and funders are connected to projects, and over time the hectares and trees that members put into recovery. Because the coalition is led by faith communities themselves, we will also gather the stories behind the numbers: the congregations and sacred sites bringing land back to life.

Our experience.

Faiths for Land grows out of two years of work already delivered: a global Stocktake of faith-led restoration distributed to UNCCD delegates, a Multi-Faith Working Group spanning WWF, World Resources Institute, World Vision and Trillion Trees, a Call to Action signed by more than 100 organizations, and the Faith4Land capacity-building program, which drew 737 applications from 102 countries representing 15.3 million hectares of land. The communities engaged through that work are waiting for what comes next.

Why now. The launch lands at UNCCD COP17 in Mongolia in 2026, while faith communities are present and the network built over the past two years is still active. Funding it now helps root a movement that can keep restoring land long after the campaign closes.