New Vision for Earth Film Festival
Array
(
[0] => Africa/Nairobi
)
Category: Uncategorized
Mangrove Photography Awards 2023
About the Awards
The Mangrove Photography Awards celebrates the beauty, diversity and fragility of our mangrove forests around the world.
We invite photographers of all levels and disciplines to submit their best mangrove images to be judged by a panel of internationally acclaimed photographers. Now in its ninth year, Mangrove Photography Awards offers everyone the opportunity to raise their voices for the protection of one of our most critical and undervalued ecosystems. Your photos can illustrate the importance and diversity of life in our coastal forests and help inspire action to protect and conserve our mangrove ecosystems.
Array ( [0] => UTC )EFI Young Leadership Programme – Mediterranean 2023
The European Forest Institute’s Young Leadership Programme, Mediterranean 2023 (YLPMED 2023), organised in partnership with the Union for the Mediterranean, will provide an in-depth understanding of the complex interplay between land abandonment, Mediterranean forests, and cultural landscapes.
The programme will offer an overview of the key drivers and impacts of land abandonment on Mediterranean forest and cultural landscapes and explore the potential opportunities for sustainable entrepreneurship and biodiversity conservation. Participants will learn about the role of traditional ecological knowledge and the potential for innovation and entrepreneurship in promoting sustainable land use practices. The programme will also examine the relationship between fire risk in the Mediterranean region and discuss the role of forest management practices in mitigating the risk of wildfires.
EFI’s Young Leadership Programme was established in 2014 and the first Mediterranean edition took place in 2018. Watch this video to discover why participants were eager to join the 2020 edition!
Array ( [0] => UTC )What Does A Global Goal on Adaptation Mean For Africa?
FLARE 2023 Annual Meeting
The 2023 FLARE Annual Meeting will be held October 12-16 in Nairobi, Kenya in partnership with CIFOR-ICRAF.
October 12th will be the opening reception and October 16th will be the optional workshop day.
The event will be held at the beautiful CIFOR-ICRAF campus in Nairobi and represents the first FLARE annual meeting to take place in the Global South.
2023 Annual Meeting Theme
Linking Research and Action for Thriving Forests, Trees, and People
Research can play a key role in advocacy and action to address climate change, reduce vulnerability, conserve forests, and foster human development. For example, evidence accumulated over decades has demonstrated the critical role of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in protecting and sustainably managing forests and, in turn, helped lead to government recognition of community land rights and new funding flows. More generally, impact assessments of different forest-related interventions have helped improve policy design.
Yet too often research has been ineffective in fostering change – or reforms benefitting communities and forests inspired and honed by research have been clawed back by forest services and other interested parties. Too often, even when research reveals options and abuses, key findings are hidden behind a paywall, suppressed by threatened parties, or are couched in specialist language that obscures their practical relevance, among other barriers. The result is that knowledge relevant to tackling the urgent challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, poverty alleviation and other social ills often remains unused. What can we do to confront such obstacles? How can research—and researchers—make a difference?
FLARE 2023 will explore these questions and seeks to make concrete progress toward better harnessing research for action. Doing so will require dialogue and collaboration among scientists, government officials, concerned citizens, activists and advocates, business leaders, journalists, and others.
Therefore, proposals for FLARE 2023 are particularly welcome that:
- Include collaboration between researchers and other actors mentioned above,
- Involve early career scholars and practitioners, including in intergenerational partnerships,
- Are led by scholars from low- and middle- income countries/the Global South.
And that:
- Address barriers to effective use of research in policy and practice and means to overcome them,
- Document and explain the exclusions of research from arenas where it could result in better forest management or improve lives and livelihoods,
- Present cases of positive policy change that reflect good practice in research uptake,
- Demonstrate collaborative approaches that have worked to bridge divides and/or show promise to do so,
- Provide examples of collective action for systemic change that favors thriving human communities and forest landscapes, and/or
- Highlight the voices, challenges, and successes of those who suffer most from forest loss and degradation, climate and environmental change, and restrictive policies.
Hybrid event: Bringing Sustainability to the campus, global perspectives
As part of the second Symposium on Teaching & Curriculum Development in Sustainability Entrepreneurship, UNEP is hosting an online event to hear from global academic practitioners on how to integrate sustainability into programme designs and inspire eco-entrepreneurs and new business model innovators of tomorrow. Speakers will address their experience and strategy for integrating sustainability; what has been effective and where challenges remain.
Panelists will include:
- Dr. Diana Trujillo, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
- Majid Mirza, University of Waterloo, Canada
- Dr. Booyuel Kim, Seoul National University, Korea
- Dr. Dan LeClair, Global Business School Network, USA
The online event explores:
- How do we introduce sustainability into entrepreneurship?
- What are the key challenges faced? What is working?
- How can we amplify effective integration of sustainability in (the private sector and) business schools?
- What tools do students need? Are they available and/or do they need to be developed?
TRED conference 2023: Co-creating space for collaborative research and learning to inspire, interact and integrate
We are happy to announce this first TRED conference that will take place on June 12-14th, 2023 in Wageningen (the 12th is online).
In this interactive conference, we will not just discuss inter- and transdisciplinarity, we will also dig deeper into the fundamentals of inter- and transdisciplinary science, create a safe space for dialogue, make time for hands-on explorations of different approaches, and experiment with transdisciplinary processes through mini-hackathons.
Background
Climate change, the transition to a circular economy, and issues concerning human health, are examples of challenges we need to address in our society these days. These issues are both urgent and complex and require the integration of different (scientific) knowledge. However, for many challenges, scientific perspectives alone are not enough. Societal knowledge is needed to understand and define problems, identify alternatives, evaluate strategies, and design and implement processes.
But when, how, with whom, and even why we should integrate knowledge are not always clear. Moreover, although transdisciplinarity requires (new forms of) collaboration, many researchers and societal members feel alone in their endeavours.
The Transdisciplinary Research, Education and Dialogue initiative (TRED) seeks to further transdisciplinary science through creating a safe space for dialogue, unpacking theories, practices and essentials of knowledge integrations.
We look forward to co-creating space for collaborative research and learning with you.
Venue and travel information
The Dialogue Centre of Wageningen University & Research, Omnia, is the perfect venue for scientists, students, society and partners to meet. Here, there is room for a good conversation and the sharing of ideas in a relaxed atmosphere.
Registration
You can register for the conference here.
The registration deadline is 2 June 2023.
Integrated Land Use Systems (ILUS) Course
The Chair for Silviculture accepts applications from external participants for its integrated land use course.
Integrated Land Use Systems (Summer School, 26 June -14 July 2023, hybrid course):
The rapidly growing world population and changing consumption patterns are placing increasing pressure on agricultural and forestry production systems. However, the classic intensification approach to increase yield of food and biomass by genetic standardization, mechanization and application of pesticides and fertilizer, has led to ambivalent results. In many places, negative environmental and social consequences have been observed such as soil degradation, eutrophication, decline in fresh water resources, loss of biodiversity, as well as land-use conflicts, loss of employment, and rural-urban migration.
Integrated Land Use Systems (ILUS), which combine different types of land uses and integrate several management goals, are gaining attention. It is assumed that ILUS compared to classic production systems provide a higher level of ecosystem goods and services, are less vulnerable to the risks of global change and market volatilities, and are better suited to the livelihood strategies of rural populations. However, despite these promises, in practice, ILUS still play an only minor role in most agricultural landscapes. Against this backdrop, this module intends to carefully reflect about the economic, social and environmental features of important ILUS and possibilities for broader diffusion.
Course aim:
One goal is to familiarize participants with important ILUS (e.g., agroforestry systems) by gaining up to date expert knowledge. The second major goal is to train competencies in the analysis of ecological, social and economic foundations and effects of ILUS. The participants will be organized into small working groups to conduct in-depth analyses on selected ILUS issues, taking into account different geographical regions, socioeconomic settings and production objectives.
To prepare the groups for this task, experts introduce into key aspects of ILUS from technical, environmental and economic perspectives, and present relevant insights from South-America, Africa, Asia and Europe. Furthermore, excursions to the surroundings of Freiburg will provide practical insights about the relevance, potentials and challenges related to the application of ILUS. Based on this input, the participants will gradually develop their group work, which will be presented and discussed at the end of of the module.
After completing the course students are able to
- describe and classify different types of ILUS,
- explain the history of ILUS and particularly their recent emergence as possible and more sustainable alternatives to commercial tree and crop monocultures,
- analyse the performance and potential of ILUS with respect to environmental, economic and sociocultural considerations,
- relate ILUS to specific issues and processes including contribution to food security, economic growth, watershed protection and biodiversity conservation, and
- critically reflect about the implications of ILUS in sustainable land use and rural livelihoods.
Target Group:
The module is designed for international graduate students,consultants and land use professionals, as well as for young scientists working in the field of forest, agricultural, and environmental sciences, geography, rural development, land use planning, landscape ecology and other related fields of natural resource management. The programme is open for applications from all countries.
Further information:
| Scientific Coordinators | Prof. Dr. Dietrich Schmidt-Vogt, Dr. Sabine Reinecke |
| Type | Continuing Education Course |
| Organizer | Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, Chair of Silviculture in cooperation with external experts |
| This course will be useful for | Graduates of forestry and land use programmes, researchers and PhD students, consultants and land use professionals |
| Prerequisites for participation | University degree related to agriculture or forestry (minimum 30 ECTS in specific modules), a minimum of two years working experience in a related sector, excellent English language skills |
| Format | Three week full time seminar (Monday to Friday 9am-5pm), hybrid (i.e. presence in Freiburg expected from 03-11 July, with excursions) |
| Dates | 26 June – 14 July 2023 |
| Certificate | Participants of the course will receive a Qualified Participation Certificate |
| Credit points | 5 CP according to the ECTS (if the voluntary oral exam is passed) |
| Location | Tennenbacher Straße 4
Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany |
| Application Deadline | 25 May 2023 (first come first served if eligible) |
| Course Fee | 450 Euro for hybrid option with excursions and lunch (an invoice will be sent after acceptance of the application), excluding costs for accommodation, food and travel |
| Scholarships | There are no scholarships available for the course and no logistical support for travel or accommodation. Interested participants are requested to look for their own sources of funding. |
Freiburg:
- Freiburg, “the green city” is a traditional but at the same time also a very young and dynamic university city. It is located close to the black forest, France and Switzerland and is considered to be one of the most attractive cities in Germany – especially in summer.
- Many sustainability initiatives originated in Freiburg, and it is one of the European centres of renewable energy development and sustainability research.
- The Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg was founded in 1457 and is one of the oldest universities in Germany. Students can choose from over 150 programmes at 11 faculties. At present, 25,000 students are enrolled.
More information and application:
Download the application form here.
Download our flyer here.
The class of 2019 has compiled a joint report on the lessons learned in the course on Integrated Land Use Systems that can be downloaded here (PDF).
Contact:
Universität Freiburg
Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources
Chair of Silviculture
Dr. Sabine Reinecke
Tennenbacherstr. 4, 79106 Freiburg
ilus@waldbau.uni-freiburg.de
Array ( [0] => Europe/Amsterdam )CIFOR-ICRAF Science Week 2023: Equity in Action
Each year, CIFOR-ICRAF hosts a weeklong event that brings its staff worldwide together to sustain institution-wide engagement with the critical global problems the organization addresses.
For the first time, some sessions by prominent scientists and leaders from the organisation, including CIFOR-ICRAF’s new CEO Eliane Ubalijoro, are available to the public to attend virtually. This year’s theme is ‘Equity in Action’, providing a unique opportunity to learn about CIFOR-ICRAF’s commitment to equity and inclusion and how its work addresses the global challenge of inequity in all its work with and for communities, partners and governments.
The following sessions will be publicly available to stream on this page and YouTube. Don’t miss the chance to learn more about how CIFOR-ICRAF engages with equity as a moral imperative in its work, the impacts it expects and more.
Array ( [0] => Africa/Nairobi )TerraFund for AFR100 Landscapes
TerraFund for AFR100 Landscapes:
How to Apply for Financing in 2023
How to Apply for Financing in 2023
March 28
1:00 – 2:30 p.m. GMT | 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. CAT | 4:00 – 5:30pm EAT
TerraFund for AFR100 is launching its new application cycle on April 5, 2023.
After working with the Top 100 restoration champions across 27 African countries since 2021, the team is ready to invest in additional locally led non-profit organizations and for-profit enterprises.
Champions that restore land in three landscapes are eligible for this opportunity:
- Lake Kivu & Rusizi River Basin of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda
- Ghana Cocoa Belt
- Greater Rift Valley of Kenya
Expressions of interest for funding will be open on the TerraMatch platform from April 5, 2023 to May 5, 2023. Non-profit organizations can apply for grants and for-profit organizations for loans of $50,000 to $500,000 USD. A team of reviewers will select the top-scoring groups to submit more detailed applications.
We are pleased to invite you to a preview webinar in English to unpack the details of how to apply for this unique opportunity.
Please join World Resources Institute, One Tree Planted, and Realize Impact to learn which geographic areas are eligible for investment, how you can access the TerraMatch application platform, how the program monitors, reports, and verifies progress, and when you can expect final funding decisions. Attendees will be invited to ask written questions, which a team of experts will address in real time.
