Join AFR100 partners from October 26-29, 2019 for the 2019 Annual Partnership meeting. Held back-to-back with the GLF Accra on October 29-30, the meeting will convene AFR100’s diverse stakeholders.
Please continue to check this page for more details.
Author: Global Landscapes Forum WT
Carbon Forestry Course
www.waldbau.uni-freiburg.de/news_events/carb_forestry
In cooperation with renowned partner organizations active in the land-use sector, such as UNIQUE Forestry and Land Use and Solidaridad, the Chair of Silviculture at Freiburg University offers this 3-week online course in Carbon Forestry. Highlights of the course include ecological, social, economic & technical aspects of carbon forestry in theory and practice. The course is taught by experienced academics, project developers and auditors, and offers technical basics of developing and evaluating climate change mitigation projects, analysis and validation of project design documents of different types of land-use based carbon projects (REDD, Afforestation/Reforestation, Smart Climate Agriculture, Improved Forest Management etc.). Furthermore, by using a local case study, participants will measure biomass on a local afforestation site or at home and quantify the carbon contents in the lab.
Additionally, participants are trained in established methodologies of specific standards, esp. Afforestation/Reforestation projects, such as under the CDM, Verra/VCS or Gold Standard. The course fee is 750€ (partial scholarships available).
For more information please follow the link or send an email to: carbon.forestry@waldbau.uni-freiburg.de.
Array ( [0] => )Securing Rights in Landscapes
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Think climate smart landscapes
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 )Les tourbières : Un paysage à découvrir
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 – A landscape to discover
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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GLF Climate Action in the Landscape at COP24
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:
- Climate Action at scale through Forest Landscape Restoration: lessons learnt;
- The role of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples (LCIP) Platform to Climate Actions in landscapes;
- Putting into practice Article 5 of the Paris Agreement and the special role of ecosystems
For details of the GLF activities at COP24, read the Concept Note here.
Array ( [0] => )Mainstreaming Blue Carbon to meet Global Commitments
You may wonder what Blue Carbon is and why it’s so important – and rightfully so. The protection and restoration of Blue Carbon is an area that has been ignored for so long. But the health of these neglected ecosystems has important implications for the global climate and sustainable development.
Generally, Blue Carbon refers to the carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems. Ecosystems like mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrasses can sequester and hold huge quantities of carbon for centuries. So, it has been estimated that when degraded or destroyed, these ecosystems can release more than a billion tons of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere per year.
Join this GLF Digital Summit to discuss why it is so important to discuss it in the context of climate change and sustainable development and how scientific and policy communities should strategize their collaborative work to achieve their common goals.
We will be joined by a panel of experts from a wide range of backgrounds to discuss these issues:
- Daniel Murdiyarso, Principal Scientist, CIFOR; Professor, Department of Geophysics and Meteorology, IPB
- Emily Pidgeon, Blue Carbon Initiative, USA
- Dan Friess, National University of Singapore
- Tonny Wagey, Indonesian Climate Change Trust Fund
Our esteemed panel will provide the background, thoughts, opportunities and challenges of this subject to allow you to participate in the discussion. Your contributions will be of utmost importance to shape the way forward.
Register now with the ‘Save My Spot’ button at the top of the page. As soon as you have filled in the details, you will be able to ask any questions you may want answered in advance!
Array ( [0] => UTC+2 )Blue Carbon Summit
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Community for Wildlife Conservation (World Wildlife Day)
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The Role of Private Capital in Conservation
Time: 13.00 – 15.00 (USA East Coast Time)
There is a huge gap between the level of funding that is needed to protect the world’s valuable ecosystems, and actual money that is being directed into them, most of which, to date, has come from public or charitable sources. However, this is truly beginning to change, with an increase in the use of private capital being used to achieve positive conservation outcomes along with competitive commercial returns.
“Conservation finance” investments can now be used to point to specific examples of how investments can be structured and show performance, as well as how we demonstrate the high levels of measurable positive social and environmental impact of these investments.
The funding mechanism for these forest conservation projects which protect vulnerable landscapes from deforestation and degradation, is primarily carbon finance. The projects generate verified REDD+ carbon credits which are sold to companies as part of their solutions to reduce net emissions. By bringing a tangible value to the carbon-reducing services forests perform, those companies are making critical forest ecosystems more valuable standing than felled or burned for the land beneath them.
This flow of investment is financing a transition to sustainable land use and commodity production and causes a chain reaction of other positive impacts such as protecting biodiversity, supporting endangered species, empowering women and bringing new jobs to local communities.
Natural solutions to carbon emissions, such as forest-based carbon credits, are recognised by scientists as one of the most powerful and immediate ways to tackle climate change and meet the Paris Agreement reduction goals, with better land management accounting for 37% of all emissions cuts needed by 2030 and critical alongside the energy transition . Avoiding deforestation is also the most cost-effective action for capturing, avoiding and storing carbon emissions with nearly 2GT of potential at <$10/tonne .
By expanding the carbon markets to new sectors and creating further demand for forest-based carbon credits at their true value, conservation finance is absolutely key to protecting critical ecosystems, and enabling businesses and consumers to take much needed climate action.
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