Digital edition: Climate 2021

This session will highlight experiences in Integrated Landscapes Approaches (ILA) implementation and reflect on the challenges related to facilitating long-term and more meaningful landscape-scale initiatives that are adaptable, flexible and ultimately more effective. Moving from “project” to “process” has been mooted as the means of ensuring more effective and more equitable means of engagement at the landscape-scale to reflect the temporal complexity of such initiatives. During this session we will draw on recent CIFOR-ICRAF and partner’s experience to highlight some of the challenges associated with integrated landscape approaches, as well as showcasing the tools and techniques that can be applied to overcome such challenges In particular, we will highlight the need for integrated approaches to more explicitly address issues related to power, gender, equity and conflict and emphasize the need for such approaches to recognize the value of process indicators over outcome objectives.

The current food system definitely cannot remain as it is. As a relevant player in the production of proteins, Marfrig intends to show what paths it is following to establish itself as a resilient company and a driving force for a “chain effect” in Brazilian livestock farming in favor of sustainability.Useful Publication:
Brazilian Beef-Cattle Production and It’s Global Challenges

The global food system is responsible for about one third of global human-caused greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), with most of those emissions attributed to agriculture and land use. Through their voice and platforms, food and beverage companies have a critical role to play; 1) to help drive a shift to a more sustainable food system; and 2) to help create a positive feedback loop, supporting governments pushing for the achievement of major climate goals, while underscoring the food system as a major climate driver and an essential part of the climate solution. To make this happen we need governments to step up and give the food sector the attention it deserves. The sector is significantly underrepresented on the agenda at COP 26 and in global efforts to combat climate change. We are calling on both governments and companies to do more.

Today, we will be announcing the 2022 Restoration Stewards, who will receive funding, mentorship, and training to bring their restoration project to the next level. We will also hear from restoration practitioners about their hopes for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and what is to come in the next few years.

The session will bring the policy discussion aimed at the agroecological transformation of food systems to the forefront. It will review and discuss the findings of the background paper on the ‘Agroecologically-conducive policies: A review of recent advances and remaining challenges’ with the paper’s authors, taking into account the feedback received during an open consultation. The session will also explore the implications for action by the emerging Coalition for the Transformation of Food Systems Through Agroecology, which involves 27 countries and 35 organizations.

Relevant Resource(s):

• Agroecologically-conducive policies: A review of recent advances and remaining challenges’ background paper

Useful Website(s):

• Transformative Partnership Platform on Agroecology (TPP): https://glfx.globallandscapesforum.org/topics/21467
• Coalition for the Transformation of Food Systems Through Agroecology: https://foodsystems.community/a-coalition-for-the-transformation-of-food-systems-through-agroecology/
• Coalition for the Transformation of Food Systems Through Agroecology video: https://vimeo.com/619735199/ff530b2522
• FTA website: https://www.foreststreesagroforestry.org/
• CIRAD website: https://www.cirad.fr/en/
• CIFOR-ICRAF: https://www.cifor-icraf.org/

Join special guests and partners for the launch of The Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR) Impact Program. The event will be broadcast directly from GLF Climate hosted by the Global Landscapes Forum on the sidelines of COP26 in Glasgow. Led by the World Bank and supported by the Global Environment Facility, FOLUR promotes an integrated approach to reduce the environmental impact of food production through sustainable landscapes and agricultural value chains at scale.
FOLUR targets the production landscapes and value chains of eight commodities in 27 countries, including beef, cocoa, corn, coffee, palm oil, rice, soy and wheat. Collaborators include GLF, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), International Finance Corporation (IFC), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Good Growth Partnership, and the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU).

Follow FOLUR on Twitter @FOLURImpact.

In September 2021, global representatives gathered for the Food Systems Summit, in the hopes of figuring out the future of food. Five major Action Areas were formulated, each supported by multi-stakeholder commitments around food consumption and food production, including the Food is Never Waste initiative, the Healthy Diets Initiative, the Agroecology Initiative and the Local Food Supply Alliance.
These Action Areas align with the findings of the much-quoted EAT-Lancet Commission report on Food, Planet, Health, a global study that explored the question of how to feed a future population of 10 billion people on a healthy diet and within planetary boundaries. The report concluded that doing so is possible, but only by radically transforming our eating habits, improving food production and reducing food waste. This plenary explores the following questions: which actions are required to launch such radical food system transformation? What constitutes a healthy diet, from a sustainable food system perspective? And who has to lead this change?

Climate change is putting the livelihoods, health and well-being of millions at stake. Conserving and harnessing our crop diversity, the foundation of agriculture, is the basis for developing crops and farming systems that are resilient to the devastating effects of the climate crisis and ensuring food security and nutrition for those most vulnerable. The Crop Trust and Government of Norway have launched a groundbreaking project, “Biodiversity for Opportunities, Livelihoods and Development,” or BOLD to conserve and use seeds from low-income countries to produce climate-resistant varieties to combat the climate emergency. As part of this launchpad we will launch the “Emergency Reserve” to rescue seed collections at great risk.

Relevant Resource(s):

• The Crop Trust Annual Report 2020

Useful Website(s):

• BOLD press release: https://www.croptrust.org/press-release/banking-on-crop-diversity-for-food-security/

This session is hosted by TMG, BMZ and IGAD, Swette Center (ASU) and dedicated to the ongoing Desert Locust upsurge and the interconnectedness with the climate crisis. Against all expectations the Desert Locust upsurge is still ongoing. The upsurge continues to profoundly threaten vast regions, especially the Horn of Africa and Western Asia, with livelihoods and food security at peril. Given that climate conditions favoring desert locust outbreaks will likely occur more frequently in the future, the session calls for new governance and innovative Early Warning systems to increase resilience in an interconnected world facing unprecedented events and disasters.

Key messages:

1. There is increasing evidence that weather changes (higher temperatures in the Indian Ocean) due to the climate crisis have played an important role and are responsible for the magnitude of the ongoing desert locust outbreak While numbers are still preliminary, according to the World Bank*, as the upsurge began to fully transpire, “over 23 million severely food-insecure people and over 12 million forcibly displaced were, already in the area”.
2. With climate change likely increasing the frequency and intensity of weather changes and therefore future outbreaks, the status quo is surely no longer tenable – better and more rapid coordination and governance are urgently needed in the name of adaptation and resilience.
3. Prevention and management of transboundary pests and diseases need to be integrated into climate change adaptation and resilience efforts.
4. It is necessary to understand the “true cost” of the campaign, not just the fiscal costs, but also the high costs to the environment and human health caused by the use of highly toxic pesticides. In other words, making the invisible costs visible.
5. An innovative Early Warning system taking into account the new threats caused by climate change, the design of new prevention and early actions, including the use of satellites, precision drones, robotics, modern management and the development of effective bio control and least hazardous control options is essential for the benefit of small holders, vulnerable people and the environment.

Relevant Resource(s):

• Scoping paper
• Building better resilience to desert locust and other transboundary threats amid the climate crisis: A plaidoyer for a paradigm shift on handling crises
• Desert locust and climate change: a call for improved global governance: A response to the latest IPCC climate report
• A locust plague hit East Africa. The pesticide solution may have dire consequences. (nationalgeographic.com)
• Whitepaper: Understanding the interconnectedness: lessons learnt from the ongoing desert locus crisis 2019-2021+
• Presentation

To address the joint challenges of climate change and the decline of our natural ecosystems, it is crucial that we take swift, collaborative action on the ground, to restore our landscapes, engaging the local communities to help build ownership, resilience and prosperity.
In this session we will focus on three key areas:
Some of the key challenges in scaling community centric landscape restoration and how LENs can help overcome these.
Perspectives from key organizations across business, farming, regulatory and civil society, explaining the drivers and benefits to engaging in LENs programmes.
Key insights and learnings drawn from LENs programmes, on multifunctional outcomes, scaling and replication.

The session will conclude with an exciting announcement regarding the next steps in the LENs journey.