Introduction

The twin anthropogenic pressures of climate change [1] and biodiversity loss [2] present the planet with far reaching challenges that need to be addressed. During 2007–2016 total net greenhouse gas emissions from Agriculture, Forestry and other land use accounted for 23% of total net anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions [3]. While GHG emissions and emissions to water and soil are a problem for the whole food chain, the majority of such emissions arise in the farming sector. Reducing these emissions and associated environmental impact will require changes in land management that promote large scale carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services which are also found in the farming and land use sector.

Restoration policies have failed to be implemented in many geographical areas; for example, Ireland is characterised by low forest cover (11.4%) relative to the mean of EU for 2020 (39.8%; [4]). Moreover, forests that have been planted in the past years are at risk of becoming a net source of carbon back to the atmosphere due to an unbalanced age structure and a reduction in afforestation rates in recent years [5].

Few new ideas on how to change the status quo are emerging and the range of public finance solutions are relatively limited in the context of economic and political pressures on governments. In addition, individual agencies, landowners, or interest groups are unlikely to have the available capital to perform large scale and long-term afforestation or forest management projects with the potential to produce tangible changes. The financial sanctions of failing to meet the climate targets enshrined in recent international climate agreements demonstrate the direct economic costs involved and motivate innovative approaches to resolving this challenge [6]. Conversely, delivering on large scale native afforestation has the potential to bend the curve towards meeting the primary climate goals of carbon neutrality by 2050. Innovative and successful implementation has the potential to achieve this while restoring ecologies and providing new opportunities for rural communities and the agri-food industry to thrive.

The island of Ireland provides a framing context for the current review. Ireland’s inability to meet afforestation targets will impede the State’s ability to achieve the targets set by the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the European Commission, and lead to financial sanctions [6, 7]. In the South, the target is to increase Ireland’s forest cover to 18% of Ireland’s land area; and ensure that at least 30% of the area afforested comprises broadleaves, including native woodland. Planting targets of 8,000 ha / year have been committed to as part of the 2019 Climate Action Plan, while in Northern Ireland, policy aims to plant 9,000 ha over the next decade, compared to the recent average of 200 ha / year [8, 9].

Forestry funding schemes in the North and South are broadly similar. Current incentives are designed to fund the planting costs associated with afforestation and a tax-free premium paid to farmers over the course of the first fifteen years of tree growth [10]. Existing public funding is not having the desired impact and the barriers to undertaking land-use exist in the form of competition from existing and long-standing agricultural enterprise and food production, complexity in the interacting issues around biodiversity restoration and commercial imperatives from afforestation as well as linked challenges around forestry licensing. The potential availability of private or mixed funding using financial instruments that are linked to afforestation and land-use change may provide the Irish agri-food industry with a way to have a meaningful environmental impact and one that has a local and observable environmental and social benefit. Novel financial mechanisms can be used in conjunction with other adaptations to their core business–ensuring the sector contributes to national environmental priorities and maintain a positive economic impact on rural communities. This provides the motivation for the current review and will help to provide generalisable insights into the set of financial mechanisms that have been used to accelerate environmental restoration.

More specifically, the primary research question is: How and can financial mechanisms ptimizede land restoration to improve environmental sustainability and ecosystem service delivery? To frame our research question, we use the following terms:

• Financial instruments: “Any contract that gives rise to a financial asset of one entity and a financial liability or equity instrument of another entity” [11].
• Land restoration is the “process of ecological restoration of a site to a natural landscape and habitat, safe for humans, wildlife, and plant communities” [12]. Moreover, ecological restoration is the “intentional activity that initiates or accelerates the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity and sustainability” [13].
• Environmental sustainability is defined as “responsible interaction with the environment to avoid depletion or degradation of natural resources and allow for long-term environmental quality. The practice of environmental sustainability helps to ensure that the needs of today’s population are met without jeopardizing the ability of future generations to meet their needs” [14].
• Ecosystem services are the “benefits people obtain from ecosystems. These include provisioning services such as food, water, timber, and fiber; regulating services that affect climate, floods, disease, wastes, and water quality; cultural services that provide recreational, aesthetic, and spiritual benefits; and supporting services such as soil formation, photosynthesis, and nutrient cycling” [15].

Moreover, the PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcomes) framework is a quantitative analysis tool used to identify different elements of evidence for a systematic review [16]. The key PICO elements for our question can be formulated as follows:

• Population: Land restoration
• Intervention: Financial mechanisms
• Comparator: no intervention
• Outcomes: Environmental improvement

The secondary research questions for the systematic review are:

• What is the geographic distribution and spatial resolution (local, national, continental, global) of the studies?
• What are the financial tools and their characteristics (e.g., duration, transaction size, risks, interest rate) in the studies?
• What kinds of land restoration (e.g., reforestation, wetland restoration) are considered in the studies?
• Who are the payers and/or beneficiaries/co-beneficiaries (e.g., oil or water companies, forest landowners, government/citizens) of the land restoration?
• How is environmental improvement measured in the studies (e.g., carbon mitigation, biodiversity loss)?
• What ecosystem services are considered in the studies (e.g., flood risk reduction, water quality, wildfire risk reduction)?
• What community development implications are considered in the studies (e.g., farmers’ incomes, reduced depopulation, improvements to public services such as health /education)?

Materials and methods

This review protocol follows the guidelines of PRISMA-P (Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols) which support the planning and documentation of review methods and act as a guard against subjective decision making during review conduct [17]. Moreover, the protocol was based on the PRISMA-P checklist which has 17 items considered to be essential and minimum components of a systematic review (S1 File).

Search string formulation

The search string uses the Boolean operators OR and AND to identify literature that combines terms for the three components: financial mechanisms, land restoration, and, environmental sustainability and ecosystem service delivery (Table 1). Within each bibliographic database, the search string was adapted to the format required for that database but will use the same terms and search fields (Title, Abstract and Keywords). S2 File shows the search string details for each database.

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Table 1. Search string to be used for bibliographic databases (the three components will be combined with the Boolean operator AND).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289120.t001

Article screening and study eligibility criteria

Conclusions

This protocol will try to find evidence on how private financial mechanisms can support land restoration as a significant way to improve environmental sustainability and ecosystem service delivery. The expected results of this study are intended to enhance our understanding of the design of funding mechanisms used to accelerate nature restoration. Furthermore, they will provide valuable insights into the efficacy of implementing these tools on rural communities, food companies, and landowners.

One main limitation of this study is the focus on land restoration as a purposeful action of recuperation without including evidence related to maintenance and protection of the natural environment. The reasoning behind this is driven by the necessity to discover suitable methodologies tailored to the unique circumstances of Ireland, which is characterized by a relatively low forest cover (11.4%) and a substantial presence of agricultural activities. However, future literature reviews could investigate the private financial mechanisms that target not only the land restoration but also the maintenance and protection of the natural environment.

Another limitation is that our study mainly focuses on evidence derived from literature. Future research could thoroughly investigate the green mechanisms reported by finance organizations and their applications in the field. However, considering that the use of green private finance tools is relatively recent, evidence regarding their effectiveness may require more time to become available.

Supporting information