Thriving together: how strong alliances achieve climate resilient landscapes

WFSE organized jointly with Rainforest Alliance and World Conservation Society a hybrid Side Event at COP26, Glasgow, on Wednesday 10 November 2021.

Multisector alliances are key in achieving climate resilient landscapes and livelihoods. The panel discussed different tools applied and challenges experienced by different stakeholders in efforts towards achieving resilient landscapes and livelihoods and presented examples from the field where these have been applied successfully. The approaches and tools should be adapted to local context, but recognize that local communities, forest communities and farmers, need to be at the heart of the efforts through multi-actor governance, that covers planning, decision-making, implementation, and monitoring. The scale of interventions, ranging from farm level to landscape, regional and national scales, is important to consider, and different types of stakeholder alliances are needed at different scales. The private sector can and should also have an important role in these alliances and in creating more inclusive supply chains. There is need for increased investments/finance but also capacity development of actors, especially those within the landscape to enable their engagement during interventions and to sustain such interventions when projects or programs have ended. It is also important to recognize when and where forest restoration is relevant, attractive and where support for forest restoration may achieve desired outcomes. In this context it is crucial to understand the ongoing livelihood and land use and land cover transitions that support development towards resilient landscapes, and which can be strengthened and supported. Indigenous and local communities and smallholder farmers need to be included and treated as equal stakeholders in these efforts and supported by synergistic measures and policies that respect and strengthen local rights, livelihoods and economic opportunities.

Moderator: Leila Yassine, Senior Advocacy Officer, Rainforest Alliance

Panelists:
Saeed Abdul-Razak, Rainforest Alliance’s global theme lead for climate change
Wil de Jong, Adjunct professor at Renmin University of China, Guest researcher at China Agricultural University and Emeritus professor at Kyoto University
Houria Djoudi, Senior Scientist at CIFOR-ICRAF
Roxy Rocks-Engelman, Sustainability Manager for Cafédirect and Chair of the British Coffee Association’s Sustainability Committee