The paper provides an informative and up-to-date overview of the progress made in understanding the evolution of the stratospheric ozone layer since the introduction of the Montreal Protocol to a broad and interested readership. It discusses new evidence that, despite the success of the Montreal Protocol, the stratospheric ozone layer will not necessarily return in the long term to the state it was in before the start of the release of CFCs (before 1970). New challenges arise, due to man-made climate change or natural extreme events like volcanic eruptions that have been shown to impact the ozone layer. The authors' appeal is therefore to continue to closely monitor the state of the stratospheric ozone layer, which is important for life, in the future.