December 19, 2017 (All day) to December 20, 2017 (All day)
World Conference Centre
Bonn
GermanySustainable landscapes are essential for the future we want: for food, livelihoods, health, renewable materials, energy, biodiversity, business development, trade, climate regulation and water. Recognizing this complexity – the diversity of landscape realities – and the need for holistic approaches, the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) aims to engage 1 billion people around sustainable landscapes.
Led by CIFOR with core partners including UN Environment, The World Bank, and the Government of Germany, the GLF is scaling- up to significantly contribute towards sustainable and low- emission development aspired by Agenda 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris agreement. Our vision puts people first and recognizes that people and communities acting together drive change.
The GLF is the first global movement of its kind and the world’s largest science-led multi-sectoral platform on landscapes, bringing together world leaders, climate negotiators, policy makers, development practitioners, private sector representatives, world-class scientists, civil society and the media to accelerate action towards the creation of more resilient, equitable, profitable, productive and healthy landscapes. Since 2013, over 25,000 stakeholders from more than 3,000 organizations and 110 countries have engaged with the GLF.
The GLF helps decision-makers on all levels appreciate the need for inter-connected solutions at the landscape level. Through its Community of Landscapes, the GLF scales-up to directly engage and connect landscape stakeholders everywhere and support them in enhancing well-being and the environment.
The Global Landscapes Forum Bonn 2017
The GLF Bonn 2017 event will be a focused, two-day Forum hosted at the World Conference Centre in Bonn, Germany on 19–20 December 2017. Organizations are welcome and encouraged to host and facilitate side meetings before and during the GLF event, and then bring their results and recommendations to the Forum. A GLF secretariat will be on hand to identify and reserve appropriate Bonn venues. Webinars, engaging social media campaigns, competitions and pre-event discussions will generate momentum and interest in key issue areas to ensure that the GLF accelerates long-term action for sustainable landscapes.
In the months preceding the GLF, participating organizations and individuals will connect, share, learn and act around five themes: Rights and equitable development, Financing sustainable landscapes, Food and livelihoods, Landscape and ecosystem restoration, and Measuring progress towards climate and development goals.
Five initial themes have evolved through GLF activities, in response to partners’ and participants’ engagements and priorities. These five themes form a starting point for the selection of discussion topics at the GLF Bonn 2017 conference.
1. Rights and equitable development
The recognition of the rights and empowerment of women, indigenous peoples and vulnerable groups is at the heart of sustainable landscapes. This theme focuses on enhancing and upholding the rights of women, indigenous peoples and local communities; facilitating reforms in land tenure and relevant legal and legislative frameworks; and contributing to land-based investments that safeguard rights of workers and indigenous communities while expanding opportunities and equitable development for smallholders and small businesses.
Potential discussion topics:
1. Mitigating risk for human rights defenders
2. Rights and climate actions
3. Barriers and challenges in securing rights for landscape stakeholders
4. Devolution of rights and land tenure reforms
2. Financing sustainable landscapes
Access to fair, affordable and long-term financing is critical for smallholders and small businesses. This theme focuses on developing innovative finance solutions that enable investments by landscape stakeholders to drive restoration, sustainable land use and sustainable value chains. In this context, the role of law enforcement, certification and accountability frameworks are crucial. While it is envisioned that most capital for landscape investment will be supplied from the private sector and equity funds, the theme will also address the deployment of public sector finance, including from the Green Climate Fund as well as national budgets.
Potential discussion topics:
1. How to scale-up access to fair, affordable and long-term financing for small-scale landscape businesses
2. Strategies and opportunities for private capital funds
3. Innovative finance solutions for climate actions
4. Transformational change driven by the Green Climate Fund
5. The performance of results-based payments for REDD+
3. Food and livelihoods
The futures of food production and value chains are central to millions of landscape stakeholders, as well as for the nutrition of all human beings. Through this theme, the GLF explores conditions and opportunities for sustainable development of food systems, recognizing that more integration and synergies with local environment and well-being will be required, as well as a better balance with global concerns about climate change and environmental degradation.
Potential discussion topics:
1. Managing the trade-offs: the future of agrarian reform
2. Finding balance between near-term livelihood improvement and long-term ecosystem integrity
3. Impacts of migration on agriculture and rural livelihoods
4. Diversity of the food system and impacts on nutrition
5. Process over projects: how to engender long- term support for landscape sustainability and strengthen links between science, practice, policy and society
4. Landscape restoration
This theme focuses on improving the conditions and opportunities for people depending on degraded landscapes. The GLF will help connect organizations and governments involved in restoration initiatives and share the latest knowledge and approaches on key issues. These include land and soil degradation; large- and small-scale restoration; upholding of indigenous rights and livelihoods within and through landscape restoration efforts; facilitating of restoration-as-investment opportunities; biodiversity; participation of beneficiary communities and local governments in planning and implementing restoration projects; and restoration of landscapes for improved food security and livelihoods.
Potential discussion topics:
1. Agreement on indicators of successful restoration
2. Financing restoration
3. Institutional aspects to inter-sectoral restoration initiatives
4. Enhancing biodiversity through restoration
5. Understanding global restoration potential and the Paris Agreement
5. Measuring progress towards climate and development goals
As GLF emphasizes the role of local communities in advancing well-being and the environment, primary measures of progress relate to a wide variety of locally-defined goals. At the same time, contributions to common global, regional and national development and climate goals are also expected. Embracing this complexity, while recognizing that measures of progress are necessary, defines the challenge for this theme. The theme engages partners to share innovations, experiences and technology for measuring progress at the landscape level. It includes evaluating multi-sector benefits in landscapes; technology and innovation in monitoring land use change and value chains; and connecting local measures of progress with indicators for SDG targets.
Potential discussion topics:
1. Local processes and measures for defining and determining progress
2. Performance of space-based technology and implications of low- precision data
3. Accountabilities in research and science when promoting methodologies and results
4. Potential of generic frameworks for landscape performance
5. Relevance of SDG indicators and targets
The Global Landscapes Forum Message - Connect4Climate Brand
Wednesday, December 20th
4:30 - 6:00 pm - Technology and Innovation: Connecting for Climate Action
Session hosted by Connect4Climate
Technological advances will play an increasingly vital role in the accomplishment of a clean and sustainable environment. Connect4Climate, a global partnership program of the World Bank launched in 2011, has worked to direct global political momentum behind climate action. Through innovative public initiatives, Connect4Climate has cultivated awareness of climate at the grass-roots level across a multitude of different sectors. Their efforts have resulted in a network of over 500 leading experts, technology, and financing providers, institutions, and corporations capable of exploring synergies and acting collectively. The session aims to utilize the strength of the GLF as a forum and community of practice to amplify their message and explain the mission of Connect4Climate.
Speaker:
Max Thabiso Edkins, Acting Manager, Climate Change Expert, Connect4Climate
The following Connect4Climate videos will be showcased during this session:
Youth Message from Max Edkins, Connect4Climate’s Acting Manager and Climate Expert
Max Edkins opens Planet:Tech at the Web Summit (Summary)
COP23 Recap: We are Uniting for Climate Action – Further Faster Together
Uniting4Climate Trailer: Uniting for Climate Action – Further, Faster, Together
We are uniting…uniting for climate…climate action! Join us
Uniting for Climate Action – Message from actress Rosario Dawson