About GLF Peatlands 2024

Peatlands cover 3-4% of Earth’s land but store a third of global soil carbon. Despite their importance, 12% are degraded, contributing 4% of human-induced emissions.

Degradation, driven by agriculture and forestry, causes environmental and social issues like fires and economic damage. Managing peatlands effectively requires collaboration across sectors.

The Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) Peatlands 2024 Hybrid Conference brought together global stakeholders to address gaps in peatland science, policy, and practice. Held alongside the UNFCCC Bonn Climate Change Conference, it explored peatlands’ roles in carbon storage, biodiversity, and water regulation.

Global Significance and Challenges of Peatland Management

This plenary session explored the multifaceted significance of peatlands, examining their diverse meanings across sectors and scales. It addressed the complex challenges of peatland management, emphasizing constructive dialogue and deliberative governance. Global perspectives highlighted the imperative of peatland conservation amid transboundary impacts, calling for inclusive management models. The session also tackled financing challenges associated with peatland restoration and sustainable alternatives.

Speakers

Moderator: Juan Pablo Sarmiento Barletti, CIFOR-ICRAF.

Speakers: Daniel Murdiyarso, Principal Scientist at CIFOR-ICRAF; Berioska Quispe, General Director of Climate Change and Desertification at the Ministry of Environment, Peru; Heike Henn, Director for Climate, Energy and Environment at BMZ; Franziska Tanneberger, Director of the Greifswald Mire Centre; Vera Songwe, Chair and Founder of the Liquidity and Sustainability Facility; Bethany Copsey, Member of RE-PEAT; and Eka Cahyaningrum, Founder of Himba Raya Indonesia (HIRAI).

The post Landscape of the Peat: Inclusive Management Solutions appeared first on Global Landscapes Forum.

About GLF Nairobi 2023: ‘A new Vision for Earth’

The GLF Nairobi 2023 Hybrid Conference, held on October 11 and 12, convened global thought leaders to set the stage for COP28, the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference. This pivotal event mobilised action on critical issues affecting humanity, biodiversity, and our planet.

The conference featured two focused days: Day 1 centered on “Africa’s Sovereign Solutions,” exploring pathways to a sustainable and prosperous future for the continent. Day 2, dedicated to climate, aimed to craft a “Survival Guide for a Planet in Crisis,” paving the way for a fairer world ahead of COP28.

GLF Nairobi brought together a diverse coalition of influential voices, ranging from scientists, activists, and Indigenous leaders to financiers, women, youth, policymakers, and private sector representatives. As a united front, we collectively championed change and passionately advocated for meaningful action in these pivotal times.

About this session

The side event, co-organized with the Stand 4 Her Land Campaign, GROOTS Kenya, and ILC Africa, brought grassroots women, government and CSO representatives, as well as international development agencies together to: 1) highlight the nexus between land restoration, secure women land rights, and addressing the climate crises; 2) share knowledge and successful practices by women restoring land in highland and rangeland ecosystems; 3) create opportunities for networking and alliance building to advance land restoration goals.

The post Why control and ownership of land by women matters in land restoration appeared first on Global Landscapes Forum.

About GLF Nairobi 2023: ‘A new Vision for Earth’

The GLF Nairobi 2023 Hybrid Conference, held on October 11 and 12, convened global thought leaders to set the stage for COP28, the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference. This pivotal event mobilised action on critical issues affecting humanity, biodiversity, and our planet.

The conference featured two focused days: Day 1 centered on “Africa’s Sovereign Solutions,” exploring pathways to a sustainable and prosperous future for the continent. Day 2, dedicated to climate, aimed to craft a “Survival Guide for a Planet in Crisis,” paving the way for a fairer world ahead of COP28.

GLF Nairobi brought together a diverse coalition of influential voices, ranging from scientists, activists, and Indigenous leaders to financiers, women, youth, policymakers, and private sector representatives. As a united front, we collectively championed change and passionately advocated for meaningful action in these pivotal times.

About John Colmey

John Colmey, Director at the Global Landscapes Forum envisions mobilizing a billion people to create landscapes that are productive, prosperous, equitable, and resilient. Emphasizing a commitment to science, knowledge, respect, inclusiveness, equity, and hope, the quote encapsulates a call for action grounded in a holistic approach towards a sustainable future:

“We are going to create a movement of a billion people to build a vision of landscapes that are productive, prosperous, equitable, and resilient. And we’re going to do it as we always have — guided by science and knowledge. We will proceed with science, knowledge, respect, inclusiveness, equity, and hope.”

The post John Colmey’s vision for Earth appeared first on Global Landscapes Forum.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) defines carbon markets as trading systems in which carbon credits are sold and bought. Companies or individuals can use carbon markets to compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing carbon credits from entities that remove or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

One tradable carbon credit equals one tonne of carbon dioxide or the equivalent amount of a different greenhouse gas reduced, sequestered or avoided. When a credit is used to reduce, sequester, or avoid emissions, it becomes an offset and is no longer tradable.

The challenge

While carbon markets have the potential to reduce emissions and support a low-carbon transition, they face criticism for issues like questionable carbon offset projects, carbon leakage, market manipulation, transparency, pricing, and the potential impact on community land tenure rights. As global demand for voluntary carbon credits continues to grow, there is an urgent need to address these risks and protect the rights of local communities.

Securing Land Tenure in Carbon Markets: TMG’s efforts

TMG Research, at the Africa Climate Summit, emphasized the critical importance of safeguarding land tenure rights in carbon markets, particularly for women and in regions like Africa where land rights are at risk.

TMG is committed to tackling the risks that carbon markets pose to communities lacking tenure rights and aims to foster their active engagement in these markets.In this white paper, we explore prominent risks and strategies to empower communities as active participants in carbon markets. We aim to help them contribute to market management and reap benefits. This is achieved through four reflections:

1. Land Tenure and Carbon Markets: Insecure land tenure in Africa risks rural livelihoods, carbon projects lack safeguards, impacting communities.
2. Environmental Challenges in Carbon Offsets: Afforestation can harm biodiversity and ecosystems, carbon offset projects have concerns like leakage and permanence.
3. Overstated Carbon Reductions in Forest Offsets: Forest offset projects exaggerate carbon savings, the credibility of carbon credits is in question.
4. Questioning Carbon Credits: Carbon credits’ impact on emissions reduction is debated; Concerns about transparency and moral licensing; A reassessment of carbon market frameworks is needed to protect land rights and ensure moral legitimacy.

The post Safeguards for Carbon Markets – Prioritizing Local Communities’ Tenure Rights appeared first on Global Landscapes Forum.

About the 6th Investment Case Symposium

Hosted in Luxembourg and online, GLF–Luxembourg Finance for Nature 2023: What comes next? united 4,500 participants from 160 countries, 106 speakers, and 100 global and local partner organizations, and reached 10 million people on social media, with more than 230 thousand engagements, around how finance can solve – rather than exacerbate – the climate and biodiversity crises.

Across 37 plenaries, expert sessions, special announcements, networking sessions, dialogues, onsite presentations, and inspirational talks, the event sparked vibrant conversations on the state of sustainable finance in 2023, including the latest innovations, success stories, investable projects, and much more.

Must-see speakers

The incoming CEO of CIFOR-ICRAF Eliane Ubalijoro at the 6th GLF Investment Case Symposium on mobilizing finance for nature: “It is not just about mobilizing finance: it is about inclusive finance and ensuring that everyone has access to it.” #LuxFinance4Nature 

The post Eliane Ubalijoro: No real progress can be made unless we make it together appeared first on Global Landscapes Forum.

About the 6th Investment Case Symposium

Hosted in Luxembourg and online, GLF–Luxembourg Finance for Nature 2023: What comes next? united 4,500 participants from 160 countries, 106 speakers, and 100 global and local partner organizations, and reached 10 million people on social media, with more than 230 thousand engagements, around how finance can solve – rather than exacerbate – the climate and biodiversity crises.

Across 37 plenaries, expert sessions, special announcements, networking sessions, dialogues, onsite presentations, and inspirational talks, the event sparked vibrant conversations on the state of sustainable finance in 2023, including the latest innovations, success stories, investable projects, and much more.

Indigenous Peoples at the center of climate finance

Sustainable finance has the potential to transform the livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples across the Americas and beyond. In this interview, we’re joined by Eileen Mairena, a researcher and advocacy officer on climate finance and territorial governance at the Centre for the Autonomy and Development of Indigenous Peoples (CADPI).

The post Interview with Eileen Mairena on climate finance for Indigenous Peoples appeared first on Global Landscapes Forum.

The 2022 edition of The State of the World’s Forests explores the potential of three forest pathways for achieving green recovery and tackling environmental crises, including climate change and biodiversity loss against the backdrop of the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use and the pledge of 140 countries to eliminate forest loss by 2030 and to support restoration and sustainable production and consumption.

The three interrelated pathways are halting deforestation and maintaining forests; restoring degraded lands and expanding agroforestry, and sustainably using forests and building green value chains. The balanced, simultaneous pursuit of these pathways can generate sustainable economic and social benefits for countries and their rural communities, help sustainably meet the increasing global demand for materials, and address environmental challenges.

The State of the World’s Forests 2022 presents evidence on the feasibility and value of the pathways and outlines initial steps that could be taken to further pursue them. There is no time to lose – action is needed now to keep the global temperature increase below 1.5 °C, reduce the risk of future pandemics, ensure food security and nutrition for all, eliminate poverty, conserve the planet’s biodiversity, and offer young people hope of a better world and a better future for all.

The post The State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) 2022 appeared first on Global Landscapes Forum.

GLF Climate: Frontiers of Change

The post Towards transformative forest governance in meeting Climate Goals appeared first on Global Landscapes Forum.

Investing in women-owned small- and medium-sized agricultural enterprises (agri-SMEs) in Indonesia can empower communities and contribute to a just agri-food systems transformation, which is key to addressing the root causes of many environmental and social challenges.

Driving capital into this segment presents a unique opportunity for investors looking to achieve social and environmental outcomes through their investments, with a gender lens. This approach holds promise for addressing the persistent equity gap for women in the agriculture sector: women often face discrimination in access to land, capital, inputs, information and training.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) approach emphasizes social outcomes alongside commercial ones. Women agripreneurs are a vital part of Indonesia’s booming ag-tech sector and represent many hundreds of millions of dollars of agricultural export revenues. Backing their enterprises means betting on proven managers in the region’s largest and most dynamic market.

Through sector dialogue, analytical publications, investor-agripreneur matchmaking, and training on a digital finance tool, this agri-SME finance deep-dive initiative seeks to unpack challenges and highlight opportunities for gender-lens investment in the Indonesian agri-SME sector, while connecting the broader financing ecosystem to spur future collaboration and continued learning.

Read more

• Mobilizing capital for women-owned agri-SMEs in Indonesia 
• Scaling private sector investment in sustainable rice: Needs and Opportunities Report
• Soy Agricultural Landscapes Initiative in the Brazilian Cerrado: Farmer First Clusters
• Soft Commodities Forum (SCF) Progress Report

The post Mobilizing capital for women-owned agri-SMEs in Indonesia appeared first on Global Landscapes Forum.

In the coming years, the agribusiness sector will navigate a rapidly shifting, increasingly challenging time. One of the challenges will be to meet the rising demand for agricultural products, even as the land suitable for growing crops declines. Navigating the changes will mean seizing new ways of increasing the productivity and efficiency of agribusiness value chains—the goods and services required to bring agricultural products from farms to retail. One solution to the challenges is to improve women’s access to assets, enabling them to fully participate in all aspects of agribusiness.

Investing in Women along Agribusiness Value Chains call on the private sector to invest in closing gaps between men and women in agribusiness. It focuses on four different stages of a simplified value chain:

1. Input provision (provision of seeds and fertilizers, for example)

2. Production

3. Post-harvest processing and storage

4. Transportation, sales, and marketing

For each stage in the value chain, the report helps companies identify potential benefits from closing gender gaps. The authors accomplished this by reviewing women’s contributions and constraints within each stage, outlining solutions for the private sector, demonstrating the business rationale for making gender-smart investments, and presenting best-practice case studies.

Case study: Strengthening Women Farmers in DCM Shiram’s Sugarcane Value Chain (2019)

Discover World Bank Group’s Virtual Reality tours

• Senegal Kirene Rainfed Foder Production 
• Smallholder Coffee production

The post Investing in women along agribusiness value chains appeared first on Global Landscapes Forum.