Monitoring platforms for land degradation neutrality in drylands: Lebanon, Zimbabwe, FAO and GEO LDN. 

Context:

Globally, an estimated 2.1 billion people live in drylands, and about 525 million of those live in Africa’s drylands. Dryland communities have been living in arid landscapes for centuries and have employed traditional and autonomous methods that sustainably use natural resources. But today, they are facing increasing and combined threats of climate change, population growth, global demands for livestock, and new difficulties posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Common challenges across dryland communities include lack of access to knowledge, limited monitoring and adaptive learning, and a lack of capacity and incentives to connect with global and regional stakeholders. To achieve transformational change in the drylands, new approaches to monitoring and adaptive learning is required to ensure comprehensive monitoring, assessment and knowledge management based on innovative spatial assessment tools to support shared learning and co-production of knowledge.  

Languages available: English, Spanish and French.

Please register here: https://fao.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YkVgXb24ROS5Bea0LLMrMA 

Valorizing every drop: participatory monitoring tools and gender consideration in dryland restoration, Angola, Brazil & Nepal

Context:

Degrading land, desertification, and drought are growing barriers to sustainable development in the dryland regions and agrosilvopastorial systems of the world, while local communities, indigenous groups and women due to their dependance on natural resources, have profound knowledge on ecosystem preservation and innovations responses for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Gender equality  is one of the essential pillars for building inclusive and sustainable forests landscape restoration and represents a challenge for Governments and societies, as it involves efforts ranging from equitable participation in collective forest management, gender ecological knowledge dissemination, recognition of marginalized forest community expertise, capacity building and women’s agency support, reorienting public policies and strengthening a more inclusive monitoring, assessment, and knowledge management processes.

An inclusive cross-cutting approach needs to be provided based on multi-stakeholders' commitments able to adopt innovative participatory monitoring tools, co-production of knowledge and shared learning– contributing directly to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 15. 

Languages available: Arabic and English

Please register here: https://fao.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_c8qQ_hltRcCYoWC_DQppPQ

Technical Event C - Grazing with Trees, Kenya, Lebanon, Morocco and Spain 

Context:

Collaboration between forestry and pastoralism is an important approach to improve production, conservation and regeneration in drylands’ open forests and lands with trees. Experiences in different countries are showing positive outcomes in terms of services provided by silvopastoralism, such as increasing food security, diversifying forest production, prevent forest fires and soil degradation, restoring areas of natural value…  

This session will show some of these experiences, initiatives and projects already adopted by countries in the WG. Later, the discussion would address the potential of this joint approach between pastoralism and forestry to deal with some key challenges of Drylands. Finally, the session will deliver some proposals to be included in the COFO WG Work Plan, including actions to improve silvopastoral activity on drylands with trees. 

Languages available: Arabic, English and Spanish 

Register here: https://fao.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YkVgXb24ROS5Bea0LLMrMA

Implementing and monitoring impact at scale: GEF-7 DSL-IP, Mongolia, FAO, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)

Context:

The Dryland  Sustainable  Landscapes  (DSL)  Impact  Program  which  was  approved  by  the  Global  Environmental Facility (GEF)Council in June 2019 as part of the GEF-7 Sustainable Forest Management Impact Program aims at avoiding, reducing, and reversing further degradation, desertification, and deforestation of land and ecosystems in drylands,  through  the  sustainable  management  of  production  landscapes.  The program  which  is  led  by  FAO,  in coordination with IUCN, WWF and WB as implementing agencies will take a catalytic, country-driven approach to accelerate transformational  and  durable  changes  at  scale.  This will be applied across dryland communities in 11 countries (child projects) in three geographical clusters: the Miombo and Mopane ecosystems of southern Africa; the savannas of west Africa; and the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands of Central Asia. The 11 countries will be supported by a Global Coordination Project (GCP) led by FAO and co-executed by IUCN and WOCAT which will provide technical expertise and country-docking support to enhance the programme's overall coherence.

Languages available: English, French and Russian

Register here: https://fao.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_c8qQ_hltRcCYoWC_DQppPQ

Agroforestry management in natural forests and pastures in drylands, Burundi, Chad, Ethiopia, Iran, Uganda, GEF-6 Resilient Food Systems Project, Global Farmer Field School Platform and FAO

Context:

Based on different criteria, agroforestry systems have been classified, with structures, functional, ecological, and socioeconomic bases being the most common. It is a system that blends production (food and income security at household- and community-level) with ecosystem services. Dryland agroforestry does not operate in a vacuum. It complements other land uses. For example, it can combine very well with the main existing land use in the drylands: nomadic pastoralism. 

Farmer Field Schools (FFS) have been an innovative approach for conducive learning and extension. A growing range of technical topics are being addressed through FFS: soil, crop and water management, seeds multiplication and varietal testing, IPM, agropastoralism, aquaculture, agroforestry, nutrition, value chain, and link to markets, etc. A 2020-21 stocktaking found that FFSs in forestry and agroforestry-related areas are enabling rural producers and groups to apply knowledge of trees and forests to stabilize and increase food, fibre and energy production while rehabilitating soils and pastures and restoring biodiversity, watersheds and landscapes. 

A few examples of these experiences, initiatives, and projects already implemented by participating countries will be shared in the session. After that, the discussion will explore the potential for agroforestry to help solve some of the key challenges associated with dryland and agrosilvopastoral systems.

During the session, key recommendations for the COFO WG work plan (2022-2024) will be made, including ways to increase dryland resilience, climate change adaptation & mitigation potential and, food security through the adoption of agroforestry. 

Languages available: Arabic, English, Spanish and French

Register here: https://fao.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YkVgXb24ROS5Bea0LLMrMA

Ankara Initiative and FAO-Turkey forestry partnership in practice: Turkey’s efforts to sustainable dryland management 

Context: Turkish territory is in the Mediterranean Climate Zone, on the crossroads of three continents (Europe, Asia, and Africa), have been heavily affected by global warming, climate change and land degradation. Drylands constitute %65 of its territory, have already been struggling in harsh conditions, which made these land resources became much more vulnerable human induced desertification and land degradation. 

Turkey takes bold action in respond to mentioned challenges, a series of intense efforts have been undertaken through various actions with specific attention to the Drylands. Consequently, substantive expertise gained remarkable successes achieved as some reported in the the FAO FRA report, Turkey is ranked in the top 5 countries that are increasing the forest cover according to data released by FAO FRA 2020.  

In order to support food security, poverty reduction, sustainable forest management, combat desertification and preserve ecosystems, Turkey recognizes the importance of cooperation in dryland management through partnership programs with FAO and UNCCD. 

The side event will present national activities of Turkey as regard to sustainable management of dryland ecosystems including good practices and knowledge produced and share key results of FAO Turkey Forestry Partnership Program and Ankara Initiative with aim of creating synergies and exchange information with other global initiatives. 

Languages available: English and Russian

Register here: https://fao.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_c8qQ_hltRcCYoWC_DQppPQ