This session is part of the preparation by FAO and FTA of a roadmap on innovative technologies for sustainable forestry. According to the Third Asia-Pacific Forest Sector Outlook Study (FAO, 2019), the uptake and scaling-up of innovative forest technologies in the Asia-Pacific region has been slow and uneven. Young people have a key role to play in amending this condition. As technology enthusiasts and forest managers of the future, they are the individuals and cohorts to take leadership and generate momentum through collaboration and social media, transform rigid institutions from within, and participate in the uptake and upscaling of innovative technologies in the forest sector of the region. This is why FAO and FTA organized a call for youth contributions. The session will show case the results of this call and present a collection of papers that illustrate, in various contexts, the potential of innovative technologies to advance sustainable forestry and sustainable forest management.

The role of forests and trees in providing multiple goods and services that contribute to the resilience and adaptive capacity of people and ecosystems has not yet gotten the attention it deserves in climate policy and action. In this session, FAO and CIFOR-ICRAF will invite diverse and intergenerational perspectives to highlight recent concrete examples of adaptation and resilience in the face of unprecedented climate change events, making strong connections to human and ecosystem health. Speakers will highlight the role of forests and trees as part of the solution to building resilient societies and a transformative economy of care for people and nature.

During this panel, Tony Rinaudo (the forest-maker) and other representatives of the approach of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) – a Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) method – will be discussing the potential of FMNR for restoration of African landscapes with Volker Schlöndorff (the film-maker). A short trailer of Schlöndorff’s documentary “The Forest Maker” will be featured during the session and impressions about the production of the film will be shared. It will be announced that the full film/documentary will be shown in the evening of the same day (Friday, November 5th at 7:00 - 8:30 GMT here). Afterwards, the importance of cooperation between ‘grassroots level’ and ‘framework setting’ organizations will be discussed. Furthermore, the panelist will discuss the need for a combined ‘bottom up’ and ‘top down’ approach in the frame of the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) including local communities and knowledge as well as women and youth for a successful and sustainable restoration of landscape for food security, forest protection and more. The initiative propagates FLR in over 30 countries, which are committed to restore close to 130 million hectares of forest.

The GLF "Climate Talks" segment provides a picture of what is already happening to trigger positive tipping points by bringing the visions, stories, innovations and climate actions from the GLF community to the global stage. Tune in throughout the GLF Climate Hybrid Conference to get inspired by the experts, innovators and business leaders who are disrupting business as usual and driving forward new frontiers in the forest, food and finance sectors.

FTA is wrapping-up a decade of research 2011-2021 and looking for the future: investigating new research and new knowledge needed, but also how to bring it to action on the ground. This also requires new partnerships. A push for action does not mean that the research period is over, but that research needs to be embedded into action. The session will present the upcoming FTA new series of publications “Highlights of a Decade” and showcase emblematic examples from 10 years of research under the FTA program, showing how these have been brought to action and impact, focusing on links to climate, food, biodiversity agendas. A discussion with stakeholders at national and international level on the role they see for research to help them achieve their own objectives, and how they see in practice this role going forward in the 9 years up to 2030 and the SDGs will complement the session.

An open discussion between ministers and CEOs of impact investment firms on the strategies, opportunities and challenges on using nature-based solutions for climate mitigation and adaptation in Latin America. The discussion will center on current strategies in the region that highlight the role of land-based actions in mitigation and adaptation. Examples of activities, their cost effectiveness and co-benefits will be discussed. This session is organized by Initiative 20x20, an alliance of 18 countries launched at COP 20 that aims to protect and restore 50 million hectares of the region’s ecosystems.

The GLF "Climate Talks" segment provides a picture of what is already happening to trigger positive tipping points by bringing the visions, stories, innovations and climate actions from the GLF community to the global stage. Tune in throughout the GLF Climate Hybrid Conference to get inspired by the experts, innovators and business leaders who are disrupting business as usual and driving forward new frontiers in the forest, food and finance sectors.

According to a recent global survey by the University of Bath, the climate crisis is causing distress, anger, anxiety and even guilt among children and young people worldwide, who are pointing to a lack of ambitious action from world leaders. How can we cope with eco-anxiety and find constructive sources of hope and action? Join this session together with other GLF Climate participants to share your interests, needs, thoughts and feelings on the climate emergency – without judgement. Please note: This session is digital and spots are limited to 30 participants. Save your spot now by registering here.

Forest landscape restoration initiatives emphasize different and often partly competing goals, like mitigating climate change, restoring biodiversity, and improving local livelihoods. The session highlights some of the important trade-offs among these goals. It focuses on the need to balance short-term economic benefits and long-term ecological and climate benefits from restoration and how to connect the interests and goals of different stakeholders across scales, from local to global and vice versa, in a fair and equitable fashion.

This session demonstrates how efficient charcoal and biochar production supports the restoration of forest and agricultural landscapes. Charcoal is the most important energy source for households across Sub-Sahara Africa. Efficiently produced charcoal reduces the wood demand for its production, thus protecting forests and woodlands, and it reduces the GHG emissions while using it as an energy source. Gasifier stoves in households, which make use of the energy surplus during char production for cooking, also reduce the fuelwood demand and yield biochar, which improves soils and food security. Showcases from Ghana, Madagascar, and Kenya will be presented.

Transparent monitoring refers to datasets, tools, and portals that support countries’ needs in the land use sector. Transparent monitoring can provide complementary data and approaches to national monitoring systems. Countries, subnational governments, grassroots organizations and Indigenous Peoples' organizations need to know that transparent approaches can help them promote their agendas and facilitate conflict resolution over forest and land use monitoring and data.

From Puerto Rico to Kiribati, from Syria to Bangladesh, from Chad to Greece, every day thousands of people are forced out of their homes due to environmental degradation or sudden natural disasters. Many find refuge within their own country, but some have to go abroad. This situation will only worsen if the climate crisis will not be addressed. During this Youth Daily Show, we will explore with two young leaders the important steps that need to be taken in order to address climate migration and to protect the affected people.

The GLF "Climate Talks" segment provides a picture of what is already happening to trigger positive tipping points by bringing the visions, stories, innovations and climate actions from the GLF community to the global stage. Tune in throughout the GLF Climate Hybrid Conference to get inspired by the experts, innovators and business leaders who are disrupting business as usual and driving forward new frontiers in the forest, food and finance sectors.

Leaders across the globe are facing up to humanity’s biggest challenge yet – transforming societies towards carbon neutrality and harmony with nature. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is clear: our prevailing economic model and consumption patterns have placed the planet on a trajectory towards uninhabitability. Every new strategy and policy from now on will be judged and measured by its ability to draw down carbon emissions. Though the challenge is great, we have the ability, knowledge and will to adapt. And there are positive signs. In this session, thought leaders will highlight positive trends from across the world that are triggering new thinking and behavior change. Speakers will discuss what it will take to achieve ‘positive tipping points’ at which we collectively change for the better – transforming our societies and sustaining life on Earth.

Positive tipping points can transform our future. One promising entry point for triggering them is ecosystem restoration, which combines restoring ecosystem functioning and development with climate mitigation and adaptation. Experience shows that landscape approaches are key to restoration, as it is in landscapes where stakeholders meet, conflicting interests are negotiated, and synergies are achieved. However, there are persistent challenges that involve conflicting stakeholder interests, siloed rules and regulations, and power imbalances that resist change. Overcoming them requires all actors operating in forest conservation and restoration, food and agriculture, supply chains, healthcare, and business and finance, to step up to change. Speakers will elaborate on the role of restoration in triggering positive tipping points and discuss the key challenges and opportunities they have experienced whilst implementing restoration processes at the regional and local level.

Forest Allies recognizes that solving the complex drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, addressing the climate crisis, restoring landscapes and empowering local communities requires diverse perspectives and inclusive discussions. This is why we convene forest communities, civil society and the private sector to form durable alliances. Together we identify roadblocks, act as thought leaders in transforming business as usual, advocate for policies which support the principles of Integrated Community Forest Management and elevate the visibility and expertise of forest communities. Join us as we launch our community of practice and learn how you too can become part of the solution.

Curious about what GLF’s restoration practitioners are up to? Whether they’re planting trees, recovering coral reefs, connecting stakeholders or creating local communities, tune in to learn about the GLF Restoration Alliance and what Restoration Stewards and GLF chapters are doing to restore our planet as part of a global effort during the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

Together with the Government of Papua New Guinea and the Oro Province, CIFOR-ICRAF and its private sector facing entity, Resilient Landscapes, are supporting the development of a new 195 million Euro nature-based solutions development project in the Managalas Plateau. The Oro Province is a unique biodiversity hotspot that has the potential to be developed as an integrated landscape level nature-based solutions program delivering both quality tree-based commodities as well as a broad range of ecosystems services and products. These include elements such as forest carbon, water regulation and non-timber forest produce. Bringing these ecosystems services and products to market alongside quality commodities can remunerate the resident clans of the Managalas plateau to further incentivize their community stewardship. Resilient Landscapes’ overarching ambition for Nature Based Solution (NBS) in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is to attract private sector participation and green foreign direct investment (GFDI) to deliver greater social, environmental, agronomic, and economic impact. The initiative has received the explicit support of the Prime Minister of PNG, Hon. James Marape and the Governor of the Oro Province, Gary Juffa, The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Climate Change has endorsed the proposal as a showcase example for the Managalas to demonstrate the real value of natural capital. The event will be opened with the official launch of a captivating film on Papua New Guinean forests – a result of a collaboration between Resilient Landscapes and the PNG Government. This foundational collaboration offers great opportunities to bring in priority partners from both public and private sectors. Specifically, the needs for evidence, risk reduction and solutions to support collaborative partnerships to overcome barriers to past investments will be discussed. It is expected that this timely special session will help reconfigure our thinking and priorities for forest protection and landscape stewardship, and to lay the foundation for a sustainable future for people and the planet.

COP26 marks a pivotal moment for countries to set ambitious trajectories to build a sustainable world. Forests are the natural climate solution with the largest mitigation potential. The New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) remains one of the most comprehensive frameworks for forest action. We will hear from governments, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC), youth, and the private sector to demonstrate how bold and collective action can halt deforestation by 2030. We will also present the findings of the new NYDF Assessment Report and recommendations on how governments can advance forest-based mitigation and ensure robust inclusion of IPLCs.

In response to the increasing and devastating degradation of ecosystems, African leaders committed to restore 100 million hectares by 2030 under the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100). There are many African communities, enterprises and politicians already invested in the movement to restore forest landscapes and ecosystems. Yet, as national ambitions continue to grow, so does the demand for local stakeholders to match these commitments in the field. In order to reverse degradation and achieve nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement, it is crucial to unblock large-scale restoration efforts, include all levels of stakeholders and build on existing achievements on the ground. With the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration in mind, one critical success factor of ecosystem restoration is the transfer of local experience into sustainably funded large-scale concepts. Successful upscaling requires close exchange, mutual understanding and strong collaboration of various stakeholders. Bridging existing challenges and embracing opportunities will be key to upscale Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR) today in order to ensure to ensure that yesterday's promises are fulfilled tomorrow. This session discusses challenges, opportunities and achievements of upscaling restoration in Africa with representatives from local organizations, governments, private sector and communities. Restoration champions will share their experiences and achievements with upscaling restoration in order to identify and discuss success mechanisms. Political, financial and community stakeholders will be able to voice and exchange their expectations and contributions to collectively address the challenges they face when upscaling restoration measures.

Over the last 30 years, forests have been increasingly at the center of discussions within multilateral agreements on climate. Recent global initiatives have focused much attention on either reducing deforestation by conserving existing forests or restoring degraded land through reforestation.   However, less attention has been given to improved forest management and forests restoration by local communities, which plays an important role in reducing the impact of climate change. It also addresses the many interconnected drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, by increasing resilience, both economically and ecologically. Numerous examples demonstrate that community forestry can significantly contribute to climate adaptation and mitigation. Through this session, the Rainforest Alliance and its partners will highlight the importance of community forestry in contributing to stopping forest degradation and enhancing climate adaptation and mitigation. Case studies of responsible forest management and productive forest restoration conducted by local communities or Indigenous Peoples, at the crossroad between forestry and agriculture, will be given. We will present how trade-offs between enhanced ecosystem resilience and increased livelihoods can be met.  We will also explore the role of companies, governments and financiers on how to further support community forests and what is needed to scale up this support at the landscape level, identifying and addressing barriers. 

Keynote and discussion with Dr. Arun Agrawal, University of Michigan, and Dr. Jesse Ribot, American University

The GLF "Climate Talks" segment provides a picture of what is already happening to trigger positive tipping points by bringing the visions, stories, innovations and climate actions from the GLF community to the global stage. Tune in throughout the GLF Climate Hybrid Conference to get inspired by the experts, innovators and business leaders who are disrupting business as usual and driving forward new frontiers in the forest, food and finance sectors.

The ways we use our land to produce food and other goods and services are responsible for just under a quarter of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Within this segment, the most significant contributors are deforestation and agricultural emissions from livestock, soil and nutrient management. It’s also on the land where climate change has its most considerable immediate effects on people’s livelihoods. Whether different land-uses are mutually exclusive as in protected forest ecosystems and highly intensified crop fields or combined as in agroforestry systems, we need integrated leadership and policies to govern land use in ways that balance goals from different sectors. Restoration is a key intervention to bridge the conservation and food production agendas, and it can help to overcome historical administrative and sectorial silos. Regenerative practices such as agroforestry, crop diversification, reduced tillage, and many more, will reduce GHG emissions. To take these to scale, we need policies and incentives that enable smallholders to reconstruct local and regional agri-food systems and value chains. In this plenary, we will discuss solutions for managing forests and agriculture to realize mitigation and adaptation targets with experts and practitioners. This brings us to a second positive tipping point which is food system transformation.

Director: Volker  Schlöndorff   Country: Germany   Year: 2021   Duration of the film: 90 minutes   Language: English, French, Hausa, Amharic, Talen  Trailer: here Volker Schlöndorff, Academy Award Winner director, will participate in the session “The Film-maker meets the Forest-maker", on November 5, and in the closing panel of the Generation Restoration Film Festival, on November 10. Twitter: @FMNRHub | Hashtags: #FMNR #forestmaker #regreening #GenerationRestoration #COP26 #Schloendorff  In the “The Forest Maker”, a documentary by Volker Schlöndorff, the famous German film director and Academy Award winner accompanied several outstanding personalities and farmers who are trying to save their environment and thus the climate with innovative methods. Among others, Mr. Schlöndorff accompanied Tony Rinaudo, who won the Right Livelihood Award (also called the Alternative Nobel Prize), in 2018. Rinaudo received the prize for discovering a cheap, simple and fast method of regenerative reforestation called FMNR (farmer managed natural regeneration). With the help of FMNR, it is possible to sustainably reforest huge areas of parched soil. The method is based on the presence of old root systems and even works in some desert regions, such as Somaliland. In Niger alone, 6 million hectares of parched soil could be reforested with the help of FMNR. In the Humbo region in Southern Ethiopia, famine occurred repeatedly for 20 years. Today, farmers in the area deliver surplus grain to WFP. The project in Humbo was submitted to CO2 trading through the World Bank. New research, published in Nature Climate Change and available on Global Forest Watch, found that the world’s forests sequestered about twice as much carbon dioxide as they emitted between 2001 and 2019.    Take action with The Forest Maker  Join the global FMNR reforestation movement, through advocacy and awareness building, by giving and implementing FMNR. You can change the world!  Learn more about FMNR:  

• Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration: Community Driven, Low Cost and Scalable Reforestation Approach for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation  
• FMNR  
• FMNR – Everything is connected 
• FMNR – Tony Rinaudo: "The Niger I came to" 
• FMNR – Pruning for natural regeneration 
• FMNR: A green Africa is possible 
• World Vision 
• (German) Eine bemerkenswerte Wende duch FMNR: Von Mangel zu Überschüssen 
• (German) FMNR – Alles ist miteinander verbunden 
• (German) Grüne Wüsten – ja mit der FMNR Methode