A possible brief historical overview, looking back from the year 2100
The 21st Century is declared the 'Century of Restoring the Earth' by the United Nations. Each country is requested to redirect 10% of its military budget, either in cash or 'in kind', towards essential restoration projects. At the UN General Assembly, the nations of the world also adopt the Earth Charter, committing themselves to the rights of other species, respect for the planet and all its ecosystems, and ending injustice and poverty.
2006
The Earth Restoration Service is launched, enrolling volunteers of all ages from around the world in essential restoration projects.
2007
Project Green Sahel is initiated, enlisting volunteers and military personnel in restoration and tree planting work in the Sahel region.
2007
The European beaver is reintroduced to Scotland.
2008
As a result of the implementation of the principles of the Earth Charter, a global ban on the use of animals in medical and other scientific research comes into force.
2009
The Global Solar Initiative is launched, with the aim of replacing at least 50% of the world's fossil fuel usage and 100% of the nuclear energy usage in the next decade. This is also a major step towards reducing the impact of global warming.
2010
The International Clean Rivers Project is launched, with the goal of cleaning up the world's polluted rivers. The first target is to clean up the 50 most polluted rivers in the next 10 years.
2010
With the aid of an international military task force, specially trained in minimal impact environmental field work, feral goats are eradicated from Santiago Island in the Galapagos Islands - the 50,000 goats there had been seriously affecting the island's unique vegetation and endangering the survival prospects of its giant tortoises.
2011
A major clean-up campaign to restore the Black Sea to health is launched, after decades of sewage and fertiliser runoff, overfishing, toxic pollution and the effects of the introduced jellyfish, Mnemiopsis leidyi, had left this marine ecosystem in a state of total collapse in the late 1990s.
2011
Mt. Everest is finally declared completely free of rubbish after a concerted campaign by the Nepalese government and environmentally-concerned climbers to remove all the accumulated debris and litter left at the base camps by previous expeditions.
2012
Under the Gondwana Initiative, first launched by conservation groups in the 1990s, all the untouched old growth forests south of latitude 40 degrees south are fully protected - this includes the whole of the South Island of New Zealand, the Australian island state of Tasmania, and the forests of the southern Andes in Chile and Argentina.
2012
Britain starts installation of 25 off-shore wind farms, sufficient to generate 30% of the country's electricity needs.
2014
The International Wild Rivers Project is launched, with the goal of restoring naturally free-flowing rivers, through the dismantling of some of the world's most environmentally-destructive dams. The project begins with two major dams being removed - the Glen Canyon dam in Arizona, USA, and the Lake Pedder dam in Tasmania, Australia.
2014
The use of trees for making paper is completely phased out, thereby saving substantial areas of old growth forest from logging. This occurs through a reduction in paper usage, combined with a substantial increase in paper recycling and the use of alternative fibre sources such as hemp and straw.
2015
An international convention banning the pumping of all sewage and other effluent into rivers and seas by 2018 is signed. To achieve this goal, a major programme of installing organic sewage treatment systems, so-called 'living machines', is initiated around the world.
2020
Wild buffalo herds once again roam the American Mid-West, after they have been reintroduced to substantial areas of abandoned farmland which have been restored to native prairie ecosystems.
2020
The nuclear submarines dumped on the Arctic Ocean seabed by the former Soviet Union are raised and safely decommissioned on land by a specially-trained international military task force.
2020
Chemical fertilisers are completely phased out and all the world's agriculture becomes organic, with immediate benefit to the health of people, the land and wildlife.
2022
Iceland becomes the first country in the world to completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels, when it completes the conversion to hydrogen and hydro-electric energy supplies.
2023
Wolves are reintroduced to Japan.
2010
Following a decade-long international information campaign, the consumption of meat and dairy products falls by 50%, as substantial numbers of people become vegetarian or sharply reduce the amount of meat in their diet. This leads to large areas of former pasture land becoming available for restoration to their original condition of native forest or prairie.
2011
The world's last functioning nuclear power station is decommissioned. Renewable energy sources now account for 30% of the planet's energy consumption - this in turn has been reduced, through energy conservation and elimination of waste, to 80% of what it was in 1999.
2013
In a dramatic demonstration of the success of the International Clean Rivers Project, the Ganges River in India is declared clean enough to drink at the holy city of Benares.
2014
With the conversion of Europe's industry to renewable, non-polluting energy sources well under way, a major programme is launched to return to ecological balance and health the 18,000 lakes in Sweden which have been too acidified to support any aquatic life since the early 1980s.
2014
For the second successive year, the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica decreases in size, indicating that the bans on the production and use of ozone-damaging chemicals are leading to the restoration of the planet's protective layer of ozone.
2015
The world's populations of marine fish, such as tuna, anchovy, cod and haddock begin to recover to their pre-exploitation levels, as a result of the declining human consumption of fish. This in turn leads to a recovery in the populations of the various seabirds and marine mammals which naturally feed on these species.
2015
For the first time ever, the world's annual expenditure on health and education is greater than that on armaments and the military.
2016
Using a similar technique to that employed in the Galapagos Islands, a massive joint civilian/military conservation operation leads to the complete eradication of brush-tailed possums in New Zealand. Introduced from Australia, these exotic marsupials proliferated in the absence of any predators, numbering 70 million by the end of the 20th century, and wreaked havoc on the native forests and their birdlife.
2016
The International Landfill Abolition Treaty, first passed in 2005, becomes fully effective when the world's last landfill site is closed. All so-called 'wastes' are now either re-used or recycled, although the total volume of such material has been substantially reduced since the end of the 20th century, which is now looked back upon as the 'Age of Waste'.
2017
The world is declared free of land mines, after a concerted international mine removal campaign. Originally expected to take 50 years from its launch in 1997, the campaign accelerated substantially once major international military resources were redirected to it.
2018
The World Health Organisation issues a report detailing the falling rates of cardio-vascular and other degenerative diseases in countries throughout the world. The report highlights the link between this and the conversion to organic agriculture and a low meat or vegetarian diet a decade earlier.
2019
For the first time in modern history recycling becomes a larger source of raw materials than mining and other extractive methods of resource exploitation.
2020
The Philippines opens its 80th tidal turbine farm, raising the proportion of energy that is generated renewably to 75%.
2037
Wolves are reintroduced to the restored Caledonian Forest in Scotland.
2039
Tiger numbers reach 10,000 in the wild, and it's removed from the Endangered Species list.
2049
50 years after the end of the Vietnam war, the government announces that forest cover has been restored from 22% to 58% of the land.
2055
Following the complete cessation of whaling in 2002, the world's whale populations are recorded as being the highest in 150 years.
2057
90% of the world's electricity and 75% of the world's vehicle fuel is being supplied from renewable sources.
2059
For the third successive year, rainfall increases in West Africa, reversing a trend first documented in 1997, when scientists positively linked the then-decreasing rainfall with the extensive deforestation in the region. The now increasing rainfall is attributed to the extensive forest restoration work carried out in the region since 2001, which has led to a quadrupling of the forest cover.
2063
Tiger numbers reach 50,000 in the wild - a population level which is deemed ecologically viable in the long term.
2085
In the restored Atlantic rainforest of Brazil not far from Rio, a previously unknown monkey species is discovered, and it is taken as a sign that the world's ecosystems are capable of supporting the full biological diversity of species again.
2091
The ecological conversion of all the world's major cities is completed, substantially reducing human demands on the planet's ecosystems.
2100
Nine-year-old David asks his great-grandfather Kevin Featherstone, then aged 105, how the Healing of the Earth took place. Kevin replies: "It all started with individuals here and there, deciding to make a difference with their lives. When they began to work with Nature, rather than against her, seeming miracles took place - the Earth really responded to our love and care."
