Climate Change is impacting our landscapes, action is needed now! During this international short course, you will learn about the landscape approach, climate trends and adaptation actions to increase the resilience of your landscapes and its people.
We will provide you with practical and participatory tools, which allow you to assess the vulnerabilities of your landscapes and develop climate smart strategies. This way, you will look for synergies between various SDG goals!
Array ( [0] => CET )This Digital Summit will be conducted in French.
Les tourbières sont l’un des écosystèmes les moins compris et les moins surveillés de la planète. Cependant, ils contiennent les plus fortes concentrations de carbone organique dans leur sol et constituent un refuge pour les espèces en voie de disparition. Ces zones humides spongieuses aident à protéger les communautés contre les précipitations irrégulières et contre l’élévation des niveaux d’eau.
Si elles sont drainées, dégradées ou brûlées, les tourbières émettent des gaz à effet de serre et de la brume, ce qui affecte les populations et accélère le changement climatique. Actuellement, les émissions liées aux tourbières devraient représenter jusqu’à cinq pour cent du budget mondial de gaz à effet de serre.
En 2017, les chercheurs ont découvert que la tourbière de la Cuvette Centrale dans le bassin du Congo était beaucoup plus grande que ce qui avait été estimé précédemment. Ils ont également estimé que ces sols tourbeux forestiers pratiquement intacts contenaient environ 30 gigatonnes de carbone, soit l’équivalent de trois années d’émissions mondiales de gaz à effet de serre. La Cuvette Centrale est actuellement difficile d’accès et héberge de petites communautés humaines et les plus fortes densités mondiales de gorilles de plaine de l’ouest, ainsi que de bonobos, de chimpanzés et d’éléphants de forêt.
La découverte de ce complexe de tourbières dans le bassin du Congo, et sa cartographie sont particulièrement importantes car elles aident à identifier, à l’échelle mondiale, l’une des zones à protéger pour leur valeur climatique et leur biodiversité.
Depuis les années 1990, les tourbières des régions tropicales, tempérées et boréales sont devenues célèbres pour les feux de forêt intenses et les émissions de gaz à effet de serre extrêmement élevées par hectare une fois drainées. En s’inspirant de l’expérience d’autres pays, la République du Congo et la République démocratique du Congo (RDC) se sont engagées à protéger la Cuvette congolaise avec l’Indonésie et d’autres partenaires de l’Initiative mondiale pour les tourbières (GPI). Il y a cependant beaucoup de choses à comprendre sur les paysages de tourbières pour pouvoir les prendre en compte correctement dans les futurs plans et actions de développement des pays.
Ce sommet, organisé par la FAO en collaboration avec le GLF vise à accueillir spécialement les acteurs des secteurs public et privé, la société civile et l’académie, les médias francophones, les personnes vivant ou travaillant dans le bassin du Congo, aussi que les praticiens du développement.
Panelistes :
Francis Müller, Directeur, Pôle-relais tourbières à la Fédération des Conservatoires d’espaces naturels, France
Dr Ifo Suspense, Université Marien Ngouabi, République du Congo
Modérateur : Anne Branthomme, FAO
Familiarisez-vous avec le sujet : Infographie « Les tourbières et le changement climatique »
Peatlands are one of the least understood and monitored ecosystems in the planet. Still, they contain the highest concentrations of organic carbon in their soil, and are a refuge for endangered species. These spongy wetlands help in protecting communities against erratic rainfall and raising water levels.
If drained, degraded or burned, peatlands start emitting greenhouse gases and haze negatively affecting people and accelerating climate change. Currently, peatland-related emissions are estimated to raise up to five percent of the global greenhouse gas budget.
In 2017, researchers discovered that the peatlands of the Cuvette Centrale Peatland in the Congo Basin are much larger than previously estimated. They also estimated that these practically intact, forested peat soils contain approximately 30 Gigatons of carbon — equivalent to three years of global greenhouse gas emissions. Cuvette Centrale is currently hard to access and hosts small human communities and the world’s highest densities of western lowland gorillas, as well as bonobos, chimpanzees and forest elephants.
The discovery of this largest, continuous peatland complex of the Congo Basin and its mapping are especially important because they help in identifying globally one of the areas that need protection for their climate and biodiversity value.
Since 1990s, peatlands in tropical, temperate and boreal regions have become notoriously famous for the intense wildfires and the extremely high greenhouse gas emissions per hectare when drained. Learning from other countries’ experience, both The Republic of Congo (RoC) and The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have committed to protect the Cuvette Congolaise with Indonesia and other partners to the Global Peatlands Initiative. Still, a lot needs to be understood to be able to take the peatlands into account in the future plans and development actions of the countries.
Confirmed panelists
Francis Müller, Director of Pôle-relais tourbières à la Fédération des Conservatoires d’espaces naturels, France
Dr. Ifo Suspense, Marien Ngouabi University, Republic of Congo
Moderator: Anne Branthomme, FAO
Participation
This summit, organized by FAO in collaboration with the Global Landscapes Forum, aims to especially welcome public and private sector actors, civil society and academia, French-speaking media, people living or working with stakeholders in the Congo Basin, as well as development practitioners.
Materials to share with participants: Infographics Peatlands and Climate Change.
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The Climate Action in the Landscape GLF will be second thematic forum to specifically focus on climate change and the interactive solutions that can be found within sustainable landscapes. The event will feature 4 sessions held throughout half a day at COP24 in Katowice and will align with the Five Pillars of the GLF: Livelihoods, Rights, Restoration, Finance, and Measuring Progress.
The event will bring together stakeholders from science and academia, civil society, indigenous peoples, practitioners and government representatives and will focus on climate action at the international and national level.
Climate Action in the Landscape will open with a High Level Plenary session reflecting on the role of land use and forests in the context of the IPCC Special Report on 1.5 degrees, to be followed by 3 consecutive Discussion Forums on topics related to:
For details of the GLF activities at COP24, read the Concept Note here.
Array ( [0] => )Scholarships for our international course on LANDSCAPE GOVERNANCE now available!
Always wanted to learn about integrated landscape approaches? Then this is your chance! Our famous international course on LANDSCAPE GOVERNANCE is now open for application. Scholarships are available if applied for before October 10th, so you’d better be fast!
During our two weeks programme (1-12 April 2019) we will challenge you to look at your own work from an integrative landscape perspective, learn how to build bridges between the public and the private sector, and develop innovative governance mechanisms at the landscape level.
Array ( [0] => )WWF’s digital summit will feature various perspectives on how to scale up Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) and increase the scale and scope of activities in Africa. Three different case studies and two government perspectives will be presented on the question: What is needed to get FLR under the scheme of the Bonn Challenge and its regional initiative AFR100 in large-scale practise and on the ground?
Valérie Ramahavalisoa, Head of the Service for watershed management at the Ministry of Environment, Ecology and Forests of the Madagascan government and Member of the FLR national committee, and Stefan Schmitz, Head of Directorate Food, Rural Developments, Natural Resources, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany responsible for the AFR 100, will both elaborate how to scale-up restoration activities from a government / donor perspective.
The two main questions are:
We will highlight the important role of partnerships for FLR through the Trillion Trees Programme, a collaboration between three of the largest conservation organisations – WWF, BirdLife International, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
The New Forest Company, a Ugandan Plantations company, which is a member of the New Generations Plantations Platform will showcase the role of responsible plantations under a forest landscape restoration approach.
Finally, these perspectives will be complemented by lessons learned that are drawn from WWF experiences on 13 years of restoration activities with communities in Madagascar’s Fandriana-Marolambo landscape as well as Uganda’s Mityana-Bugiri landscape. The lessons learned will touch upon important experiences on the importance of FLR for both conservation and livelihood.
We hereby invite everyone to join us in this “Digital Summit”, to better understand and discuss with all panellists on how restoration activities can be scaled up. You will have the chance to learn and ask project managers, the private sector, a government representative from a tropical forest country and a donor on their perspectives.
Participants
Keynote speaker: Stefan Schmitz – Head of Directorate Food, Rural Developments, Natural Resources, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany
Case study Uganda: Martin Asiimwe – WWF Uganda, Forest and Biodiversity Program Coordinator and Patrick Mugenyi – New Forests Company Uganda, CEO (NGP Participant)
Case study Madagascar: Valérie Ramahavalisoa – Head of the Service for watershed management at the Ministry of Environment, Ecology and Forests, National Focal Point for soil projects, and Member of the FLR national committee and Simon Rafanomezantsoa, Senior Officer, Terrestrial Biodiversity, WWF Madagascar Country Office
Case study Trillion Trees Programme (TTP) – Tim Rayden joined the TTP when it was launched at the end of 2016, and now supports the development of restoration projects across the WCS global portfolio.
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