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Event Region: Global

Forest Invasive Species – the next global pandemic?

The webinar will focus on international collaboration on managing transboundary forest pests and diseases, and will aim to raise awareness on the importance of international collaboration and preventative measures in managing forest-invasive species.

  • Coordinators: Shiroma Sathyapala, Forestry Officer, FAO; Norbert Winkler-Ráthonyi, Forestry Officer, FAO
  • Co-organizing institutions: Forest Invasive Species Networks Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Near East

A series of forestry and COVID-19 related webinars will be organized between July and October 2020. This webinar series is organized under the auspices of the FAO Forestry Technical Network (FTN). The Network intends to ensure a high standard of technical excellence and promote innovation in FAO’s work in forestry by providing a platform to promote the exchange of ideas and experiences.

The FTN webinar series builds on the outcomes of the COVID-19 Forestry Webinar Week under the theme Building back better: COVID-19 pandemic recovery contributions from the forest sector, which took place 22-25 June 2020.

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Indigenous Peoples and voluntary isolation: when forest food systems become a stronghold against COVID-19

During the COVID-19 outbreak, indigenous peoples have emphasized that the impact of the pandemic on their livelihoods and food security depends largely on the health and well-functioning of their food systems. This event will feature testimonies of indigenous peoples living and depending on forests to feed themselves and their communities. The discussion will give special attention to how forest-indigenous peoples’ food systems became their safety nets during the pandemic. The event will feature communities that have resorted to traditional forms of confinement. It will focus on indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation in the majority of cases living in forests, and why they opted to rely on forests for their needs.
A series of forestry and COVID-19 related webinars will be organized between July and October 2020. This webinar series is organized under the auspices of the FAO Forestry Technical Network (FTN). The Network intends to ensure a high standard of technical excellence and promote innovation in FAO’s work in forestry by providing a platform to promote the exchange of ideas and experiences.

The FTN webinar series builds on the outcomes of the COVID-19 Forestry Webinar Week under the theme Building back better: COVID-19 pandemic recovery contributions from the forest sector, which took place 22-25 June 2020.

Learn More
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Forests and the European Commission: Introduction into FLEGT-VPA and ‘Embodied’ Deforestation

The European Commission (EC) continues to develop various instruments that aim to reduce the European Unions (EU) international impact on forest degradation and destruction. In this webinar we want to improve our understanding of two particularly promising instruments and developments. First of all, we will receive an input on a legally binding trade agreement, called Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA), which allows Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) licenses to be issued. VPA-FLEGT aims to ensure the provision of legally sourced wood from timber-producing countries outside the EU. Why is this specific system believed to deliver positive results? What are the current developments? Can we already see results in countries where VPA-FLEGT is established?

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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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YOUth ACTivation: towards the Global Forest Goals

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Youth call for an awakening to the reality that we are valuable partners and agents of change in efforts to halt deforestation, particularly in facilitating collective action, building capacity, and sharing the message with everyday people. To do this we must be trained, organized and have a clear set of objectives to deliver.

YOUth ACTivation: towards the Global Forest Goals will provide a launchpad for youth contributions to the UN Forum UNFF13 and present tools to succeed in the fight against deforestation.

During this webinar, participants will learn about forest policy instruments on a global level such as the United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests (UNSPF) and the Global Forest Goals. Participants will understand how the Major Group Children and Youth (MGCY), convened by the International Forestry Students’ Association, functions before introduced to the work of MGCY.

MGCY is currently producing a work plan that will showcase how young people can contribute to achieving the UNSPF. Having young people on-board for this effort is crucial as we can provide new, innovative ideas to tackle global problems – and we are willing to act!

The webinar will introduce the main objectives of the work plan and will then provide a platform to discuss among participants how we can bring this work plan to life. Participants will have the opportunity to contribute ideas for specific projects that will contribute to achieve the UNSPF.

Join us for this Digital Summit and get involved with your idea to achieve a common vision – YOU ACT!

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Landscape transformation: what does power have to do with it?

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Many different kinds of actors are involved in landscape transformations – indigenous landholders, small-scale farmers, agri-business corporations, land titling agencies, and forest conservation departments, to name just a few. Each actor has their own vision of how landscapes should be arranged, and who should be permitted to do what with the land. These visions  sometimes overlap, but often they conflict and collide, bringing questions of power to the fore.

What kinds of power can an agri-business corporation use to displace an indigenous woman farmer from her land – and what powers can she use to hold on to it, if she has other plans for it?

Why are forest departments able to enforce protected area boundaries in one location, but not in another?

What makes some small-scale farmers able to hold onto their land, while others lose it through mortgage or debt?

In situations like these, no actors have all the power on their side. Instead, different actors make use of one or more “powers of exclusion” to hold on to land, and to exclude others from it. These powers include force (a gun, a fence, a blockade); regulations (state laws, customary laws, formal boundaries, and land use zones); markets (the price of rent, or credit, or a bribe); and legitimation (arguments about what is right, or fair, or efficient, that may pit global conservation against local incomes, or GNP growth against equity and sustainability, or indigenous peoples’ rights against the needs of landless migrants).

The webinar outlines the “powers of exclusion” framework for analyzing how different actors are able to control land and transform landscapes, and what happens when agendas conflict. Illustrations will be drawn from different scales (regional to local) with a focus on Southeast Asia, and will be used to highlight implications for policy, advocacy and practice. The webinar will also include an open forum for Q and A.

The presenters are Derek Hall, Philip Hirsch and Tania Murray Li, co-authors of Powers of Exclusion: Land Dilemmas in Southeast Asia (2011, National University of Singapore and University of Hawaii Press).

Background reading:

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World Wildlife Day 2018: The role of youth in big cat conservation

Last year the theme of World Wildlife Day was “listen to the young voices,” and this year, with the theme of “big cats: predators under threat,” we’re bringing some young voices to the fore to talk about their experiences in big cat conservation. Tune in on WWD 2018 for a roundtable discussion hosted by Youth for Wildlife Conservation (Y4WC).

Some of the most charismatic wildlife in the world, big cats face a number of threats, from habitat loss, to poaching, to human-animal conflict.

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Join the GLF and GFAR Digital Summit: The webinar on webinars

You’d have to be a bit crazy to publicly share your professional secrets to success.

I mean… why share all of the stuff that gives you and your organization the competitive advantage over the next organization? You’d have to be crazy.

Well, in the next webinar: we will go a bit crazy.

We’ve assembled a panel of eight experienced communicators, all of whom organize webinars for a living.

Our speakers will lay it all out in the open: their success stories and their biggest flops. Their golden tips and tricks that will help you understand what it takes to pull together and present a webinar.

To both walk the walk and talk the talk, our team of speakers has worked together to make this webinar also enjoyable, rich and engaging. We also teamed up with April Thompson (USAID Feed the Future Knowledge Driven Agriculture Development – KDAD) and David Thomas (Global Landscapes Forum – GLF) as our panel, and online public moderators.

So, join us!

Our “The webinar on webinars” (co-organized by GFAR and GLF)

Date: Tuesday November 21st – at 14:00 Rome time
Duration: 1.5 hours
(Use this tool to help you convert “Rome time” to your timezone)

We will give ample opportunity for all webinar participants to join into the discussion, either to share their own experiences, hints and tricks, or to ask questions to the speakers, or to the entire group.

This webinar is co-organized by the GFAR (Global Forum for Agricultural Research and Innovation) and GLF (Global Landscapes Forum). It is part of the GLF Digital Summits series.

Our moderators:

April Thomson

April Thompson has more than 10 years’ experience in knowledge management, marketing/communications and capacity building in international development. April currently serves as Knowledge Management Portfolio Manager for the QED Group on the USAID Feed the Future Knowledge Driven Agriculture Development (KDAD). The KDAD project seeks to harness and share best practices, learning and evidence to reduce hunger, poverty and malnutrition through agriculture-led economic growth. She previously has worked in nearly a dozen countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America on diverse projects in women’s empowerment, poverty alleviation, human rights and natural resources management. April has a master’s degree in international development and an MBA from American University, and a BA in Psychology from the University of Virginia.

In our webinar, April will moderate the discussion with our speakers.

David Thomas

David Thomas is a multi-faceted development specialist, entrepreneur and facilitator. He has a MSc in development finance and a BSc in physics & philosophy. For many years, David was a consultant on microfinance and small business development in Africa, working with Save The Children UK, Oxfam, ILRI and others. He is the founder/director of Danaqa World Chic, an innovative ethical market access company with a retail outlet in West London, which provides an access to the world markets for women’s led businesses from developing countries. He is a consultant on multi-stakeholder processes, engagement, knowledge sharing and market access technical assistance. David is also works for the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) as the lead facilitator/engagement specialist for the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF).

During this webinar, David will moderate the questions coming in from the public.

 

Our speakers:

Kathlee Freeman

Kathlee Freeman is a communications assistant with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and the Mary Ellen Gibson Anti-Hunger Policy Fellow at Operation Food Search. In addition to her communication work, she conducts research focused on food security in the United States and East Africa. Kathlee holds an M.S. in Rural Sociology from the University of Missouri – Columbia.

Aimee Maron

Aimee Maron is a knowledge management and capacity building consultant with over 10 years of experience in Latin America. She has held past positions as Knowledge Management Coordinator for the regional USAID program, the Initiative for the Conservation of the Andean Amazon (ICAA) and as Media Manager for Ashoka Changemakers. Aimee has specialized over the years in the facilitation and design of capacity building and training processes to engage local, national, regional, and international stakeholders in urban design & planning, governance, climate change, sustainability and conservation issues. She has developed an expertise in the design and implementation of knowledge management strategies, adult education initiatives, and organizational strengthening strategies across diverse cultures and communities. In the context of her work with ICAA, Aimee organized and facilitated over 60 webinars (in Spanish) on topics related to the conservation of the Andean Amazon.

Pier Andrea Pirani

Pier Andrea Pirani is a knowledge sharing and online collaboration specialist. A skilled trainer and facilitator, since 2004 he has been working with individuals, teams, organisations and networks to support them in the strategic use of digital technologies for effective communication and knowledge sharing. He is co-director of Euforic Services Ltd and he lives and operates from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Leandra Khoury

Leandra Khoury has been involved with online learning in various formats for more than 10 years. She has worked at various NGO’s, educational institutions and currently manages her own e-learning company. She has a Master’s Degree in Education and is also a chiropractor. She has a keen interest in learning and discovering new software. She will join us from South Africa, with a wide range of experience in instructional design and the development of interactive e-learning content, Learning Management System development and maintenance as well as experience in webinars (namely researching various webinar software available, assessing their functionality, organizing and running webinars and troubleshooting during the webinar.

Kelly McDonald

Kelly McDonald serves as the Knowledge Management Coordinator for USAID’s multi-sectoral nutrition project, SPRING in Washington, D.C. She works across country and technical teams as well as with the wider development community to facilitate and manage knowledge sharing activities including webinars, social media and other dissemination outlets, publications, graphic design, and in-person events. Prior to SPRING, Kelly studied the effects of culture and public infrastructure on nutrition while a visiting student at the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine at JIPMER in Pondicherry, India. Kelly holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Decision and Cognition from the University of Michigan and a minor in Gender and Health.

Peter Casier

Peter Casier is an online media consultant for nonprofit organisations. Peter is originally trained as a printing engineer, worked as a software developer, systems & networking engineer, telecoms technician, aidworker, disaster responder and ski instructor. For decades, he has wondered around the globe, trying to find the origin of life, proof of alien activity and the truth behind the murder of JFK. Peter has battled the odds of connectivity failures, ship-jumping presenters, power cuts and suicidal facilitators, to pull together over 30 webinars in the past five years. Armed to the teeth with duct tape and super glue, Peter is also our resident GFAR Community Coordinator.

Julie MacCartee

Julie MacCartee is a Knowledge Management & Learning Specialist with the USAID Bureau for Food Security, where she supports organizational learning, knowledge-sharing, and adaptive management to improve outcomes of global food security programs under the Feed the Future initiative. She facilitates USAID’s monthly Agrilinks webinar series, oversees the Agrilinks.org platform, and serves as an Activity Manager for the Feed the Future Knowledge-Driven Agricultural Development (KDAD) project. Julie holds an MS in Agriculture, Food, and Environment from the Tufts University Friedman School; a Master of Public Health from Tufts; and a BS in Biology from Duke University. She has organized and/or or facilitated over 100 webinars for USAID, and is excited to discuss lessons learned!

Register now!

You can register for this webinar by sending a simple email to Peter Casier – peter.casier(at)fao.org

Please mention the title of the webinar you want to participate in, your name, affiliation (organisation/institute) and function.

We will send you a confirmation email. You will get a reminder with the technical details to join the webinar, one day before the event.

Register fast! Our webinars are limited to 100 participants and the available “seats” are often taken in a matter of days. We encourage participants to actively engage in our webinars with feedback, questions, and sharing of their own experiences.

About the GLF Digital Summits

Attendance to our Digital Summits is open to all. GLF partners as well as other nonprofit organisations or individuals working in the area of forestry, sustainable development, agriculture, ecosystems, public health and design are especially encouraged to register.

Our summits are attended a wide variety of landscapes practitioners: there is no barrier for entry beyond a passion for solving complex problems!

We do not ask for a participation fee, but we like all participants to actively engage into the online discussion during the digital summit.

The summits are moderated via BlueJeans, an online tool running within any internet browser. It only requires participants to have a good and reliable Internet connection and a computer/tablet running any browser.

 

Picture courtesy Bertrand Semelet (via Camp-to-Camp)

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Forest tenure reform implementation in Uganda: What lessons for policy and practice?

Purpose:

Over the past decade or more land and forest tenure reforms in Africa, Asia and Latin America have provided greater legal recognition of local, customary, indigenous territorial rights and women’s rights. However, implementation of these reforms has been uneven and has led to mixed results, including increasing tenure insecurity.

In order to better understand reform implementation and to generate insights for policy and practice, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) together with partners in Uganda, Indonesia and Peru initiated a research and action project in 2014 intended to:

  1. Establish how forest tenure reforms emerge, and document experiences and options for formal approaches to securing tenure rights for forest adjacent communities.
  2. Identify impacts of tenure reform on rights and access of women, poor men and ethnic minorities to forests and trees
  3. Identify factors that constrain support for reform and its implementation
  4. Disseminate lessons learned and knowledge generated at sub-national, national, regional and international levels.

In Uganda, the work was conducted by Makere University and the Association of Uganda Professional Women in Agriculture and Environment (AUPWAE) in three districts: Kibaale, Lamwo and Masindi.

This multi-stakeholder colloquium is aimed at sharing lessons learned from the research and action conducted in Uganda to stimulate debate over these lessons, to identify how they might be integrated into ongoing and future initiatives and to identify emerging issues.

Objectives:

  1. Provide feedback to the stakeholders regarding the findings of the study
  2. Facilitate multi-stakeholder discussions on various aspects of forest tenure reforms implementation
  3. Generate some recommendations for improving forest tenure reform implementation in Uganda as well as securing tenure rights of local communities

Further reading:

Related project site:

Donors:

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CIFOR at COP23

Under the Presidency of Fiji, the UN Climate Change secretariat with the support of Germany will host this annual meeting with one clear objective: making progress on the successful, inclusive and ambitious implementation of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. This includes negotiations on the implementation guidelines for transparent climate action under the agreement, as well as showcasing cooperative climate action, including on vulnerability and resilience, with examples from around the globe.

For further info please click here.

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GLF Forests 2025