Dryland Forests, Rangelands and Agrosilvopastoral Systems (DReAMs) Dialogues: building on the Global Exchange for Drought Resilience - Action Dome, UNCCD COP17

I hope everybody is back to the seats.
Good morning again.
It's my great pleasure to be with you here today.
I hope that the coffee gives you a little bit of energy.
It's early in the morning.
Thank you very much for being here with us so early.
We have a very packed hour, so I will try to maybe just give a little brief what we are doing here.
We are talking about aros or pastural systems and dry forest and we are talking about those aspects linked to the drought.
We know that the drought is really an issue we are having in many of our landscapes, and we would like to link the aggressive pastoral systems and the dryland forest as a solution for drought and we will have a different segment.
Today we will start with this distinguished panel we are having here.
We have a presentation, and then we will move to another more discussion panel, and then we will close with the launching of the dreams, which is which is aggressive pastoral systems dialogues we want to launch.
With that, I would like to ask Gabriel Lambert, please you can introduce yourself and just to welcome everybody here.
Thank you very much.
Hello, everyone.
Thank you, ria, for this introduction.
My name is Gabriel.
I'm working at the UNCCD closely with the Deputy Executive Secretary on many cross cutting issues.
One of them is, of course, supporting the organization of the COP and in particular, the action agenda where this event is framing.
But as well as coordinating the International Drought Resilience Alliance, kindly and generously supported by the government of Spain.
ERA, the International Drought Resilience Alliance has been established in 2022 in the Climate Cp hosted within the UNCCD Secretariat, and since then has been a lot growing, now reaching up to 80 members, more than half of them are countries, but other organizations are part of it.
And I'm very happy to be here today to talk about this very important topic because the work of IDRA is to support drop resilience, which is a very important topic and linking it very much to the range lands and agro silver pastoralist systems.
Because of course, it is timely that we are talking about that, timely that it is happening in Mongolia where we know the importance of arrange lands in this country.
And the importance of very strong sustainable management of those ecosystems that are super supportive for drought resilience.
And that's what the work of ERA is doing, improving drought resilience politically.
Of course, that's one of the core mandate of ERA members to elevate drought resilience in the political agenda, but also supporting a diverse range of initiatives such as this one.
So including many others, we have here in this action dome, the International Drug Resilience Observatory, that is a tool that is aiming at assessing and monitoring drug resilience in countries, but also in the capacity with the different indicators that have been developed to assess and measure how drug resilience is progressing.
IRA is also supporting and has been kick starting a lot of interesting initiatives, some of them are financial, some are on the knowledge product.
But this one very much more technical is very interesting because we are linking and the purpose of IRA is to work somehow like a incubator of initiatives that can be taken over at a larger scale later.
That's what Ira has been doing since the beginning and that is doing quite well.
An example is the drought resilience investment facility that has been initiated thanks to IR is now getting at a larger scale.
But coming back to range lens and aggressive or pastor ecosystem, it is very interesting to see also that IRA can promote such activities and linking the dots all over, so that very timely.
We know the importance of those ecosystems, and we are very pleased from the UNCCD standpoint and the IRA Secretariat, to be able to support that type of activities.
We know that it comes from the dialogue that you have on Sunday and the idea is also to elevate profile these ecosystems into the overall UNCCD space.
So I hope there will be very fruitful exchanges during the session and thank you very much for listening.
Thank you, Gabriel, for the COFO working group on Assur pastoral systems and dryland forests.
This is really like music for our ears to hear this upscaling you are trying to do because this is really important that we move from fragmented actions to holistic policies and that's why we are here today.
Thank you very much, Gabriel.
Nora, I would like now to go to you and Norah is actually was or is very supportive of the work we are doing in forest.
She is a forester from her heart.
Nora, please, can you give us some guidance welcoming? Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this wonderful space of the action dome.
It's really a great pleasure to see you and to see all the actually so many colleagues here this morning and particularly many familiar faces because we have met at the UN House on the 16th of August during the workshop.
So what we called, of course, the global exchange and I like how it was called global exchange, really very interactive exchange on dry and forest trees and agro silver pastoral approaches for drought resilience.
So let me begin first by really thanking our partners who have brought us together because we are one team for one dream, actually, which is really IDR, the COF working on dryland forests and aggressive pastoral system, the government of Spain, the government of Mongolia, the UN CCD, and the Dryland Sustainable Landscape Impact Program that is funded by the Jeff, now the seventh cycle.
Yeah, we are meeting in this beautiful home and at this important venue of the CP 17 UNCCD where actually drought drought is at the heart of the UNCCD it is really the UNCCD, which is really a beautiful convention that brings people together, that brings governments together and brings all the knowledge and experience around the world together because really we cannot address drought alone.
We need this IRA alliance.
We need to put together our efforts.
It's not only FAO, it's not only the government, it's not only the UNCCD itself, but everybody together in order to support and address this drought agenda, mainly in a moment where drought really is becoming more more frequent, more intense, more impact, more complex to address, and it touches everyone, us as humans, as individuals, our families, but also all the different sectors, all the ecosystems, including the forest, the landscapes, the crop and livestock production, the biodiversity, the food systems, and the livelihoods of those who really depend on range lands and agsbo pastoral systems for their living.
This is why I think and what is good The systems are not just impacted, but they can bring the solution.
We always say agri food systems are also sometimes, of course, they drive this issue, but they can be really the solution and bring the real infrastructure for building a long term resilience.
As you know, and I said it already on the 16, actually it's to the forests and to the aggressive pastoral system that all the pastoralists and everyone, every farmer turns to At the time of the drought when it hit the most.
It's really the food safety net.
So together, of course, these sectors or these ecosystems, these people, these actors, they cannot really work separately in isolation.
They form really the interconnected systems that can provide the ecological and livelihood infrastructure and we people are part of that systems.
The beauty is that we are not really starting from zero.
Resilience has been and drought management has been really developed generations after generations for millennia, by the people who were living in the Mediterranean, in the deserts, and so on and so forth, in the drylands in general, in the steps and so on.
The challenge now is really to connect this knowledge, build stronger evidence, and accelerate learning across countries, across actors, and bring successful approaches to scale.
This was at the heart of your global exchange on 16 of August.
And today we bring these discussions here now at Cop 17 and the CFO working group, I think on drone forest and aggressive pastoral systems that really brings over 80 countries, 80 members and experts from 80 countries and chaired by our dear chair here together from Zimbabwe provides really an important platform to connect this experience, the science, the policy, the practice, and of course, the collaboration we are building together with IDR and our partners and the UN CCD gives us an opportunity to strengthen this collaboration and this exchange.
This morning, I am so happy because last time I couldn't stay to the whole workshop.
This morning we will hear the key messages, the outcome of your wonderful work on the 16th, and then to take an important step with the launch of the dreams dialogue, dreams for dry forests, rangelands, and aggressive pastoral systems dialogues.
And I say dreams that will not stay as dreams, but dreams that become reality, action on the ground and we are in the action dome.
It's not just, let's say, paras coincidence that we are hosted in this action dome, dreams that become reality.
Our ambition is to build a continuing space.
This is not the only time to continue exchange together for country driven learning, science policy, dialogue and collaboration, one that help us move from individual experience to collective learning and from what works locally to policy, investment, and action at scale.
Dreams that become true.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Norah.
Yeah, thank you.
Actually, the dreams are meant to set a vision for our dryland, shared vision from different people, particularly also pastoralists, indigenous peoples, women in the ground, and all of us here that we have a vision of resilience and continuity for our dryland.
Thank you very much for bringing all of this in this room today.
Ilsa, it's really a great pleasure to have you here.
I know how busy you are, so thank you very much for taking time to be in the morning with us, I might maybe introduce you Elsa Enrique Al Kate.
I hope that I say your name correctly.
You are the Deputy Director of Forest Policy and Combating desertification in the Ministry of ecological transition, climate change, and demographic challenge.
Mid, how you speak it in English, Mid.
It's okay.
It's the abbreviation of your ministry.
Mi.
Thank you.
Please, you are supporting Ira with other countries, of course, and we would like to hear from you what brought this idea, the importance of aggressive pastoral systems and forest in the whole collaboration.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good morning, colleagues.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you to you for inviting us.
As you have said, a, we are here, first of all, as co chair of the IRA as Gabriel also has said that we launched together with Senegal and we have been working with the secretary of the convention.
We thank you so much, the secretary.
We thank you also the CF working group foreign, as well as the government of Mongolia, who is involved in the global exchange on Sunday and this important dialogue here.
But we also are here as the government of Spain and the forest policy unit, which is dealing with forests, of course, but also with these Agro Silbo pastoral systems.
So we have experience to manage and to restore and conserve these ecosystems that are so important to build drought resilience.
The discussion that you had on Sunday during the global exchange highlighted a message that strongly resonates with our experience in manage these ecosystems because we really think that drug resilience cannot be achieved through sectoral approaches along isolated approaches.
We really are fostering in Spain a multi sectorial approach to manage and conserve and restore the ecosystems.
Because these landscapes are interconnected components of living ecosystems, only in this manner we can have these multiple benefits ranging from fruit production to rural livelihoods, as well as we achieve our objectives of biodiversity conservation, carbon storage, and land restoration.
Spain is, as you know, is one of the European countries most exposed to decertification and climate related pressures.
So we have learned that resilience not only depends on restoring ecosystems, but also we have to be sure to maintain the social and economic and aspect of this ecosystem.
So this is particularly important in the rural areas where extensive livestock farming, silver pastoral management, and traditional land use practices continues to play a vital role.
In Spain, we are trying to foster this life of living because we are some way losing it.
This is an effort that we have to do very hard.
We have in Spain as the main example of this type of ecosystem.
I'm talking about our silver pastoral ecosystem.
We have this desas we call desas a very particularly ecosystem.
And we have also many 100,000 kilometers of livestock roots that we are trying to conserve because they are in use, but as I have said, the use of these type of ecosystems and these roots, we are losing it.
For us, it's very important.
They are recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage, and we don't want to that they be relics of the past, but we need them to be functioning as infrastructures for mobility, ecological connectivity, and to build this drought resilience.
So we celebrate today the lands of these D dialogues with the collaboration between FAO, Ira, and the UN CCD.
We hope this is the beginning of a longer term process that we continue throughout the coming months.
And as Spain would like to encourage these dialogues on 53 key areas.
The first one that we consider very important is the sustainable management and also restoration of these type of ecosystems.
The second one would be the knowledge science and capacity building.
We think that these type of dialogues could work on that issue.
The last one, but the most important for us is to supporting the meaningful participation of the pastoralist communities, indigenous people, and local stakeholders.
Nora has mentioned them, I think they are so important because they have all the knowledge and experience to really conserve these ecosystems.
Finally, and to conclude, we are celebrating also the International Year of rain lands and pastoral.
Let us remember that investing in dry forest, rains and agro pastoral system is not only an environment priority, We need an investment in food security, rural development, and climate resilience and social stability.
The recommendation emerging from the global exchange provide a strong foundation and the dreams dialogues offer us an opportunity to translate those recommendation in lasting partnerships and concrete action.
So Spain stand ready to share its own experience and bring it to the first series of dreams dialogues.
Thank you so much for inviting us again, and it's a pleasure to be here with all of you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Isa.
Now, I am moving to a very, very good friend of the COFA working group.
I mean you, Professor Batu, who was actually the chair of the COFA working group, Mongolia before Zimbabwe took over last year.
Batu, you have been absolutely key for You have been absolutely key for the COFA working group and it's a pleasure actually to have a panel today where we have the previous COFA working group chair and the current ones.
It's a very special moment for me as I joined this really recently a year ago, but I actually followed the discussions in Mongolia and how we experience with the COFA working group and how important is the work we are doing for Mongolia and how we can take this further and include more of the specific aspects in Mongolia.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Joliam welcoming message and introduction of mine.
My name is Batu as mentioned.
I'm a Actually, right now, I'm the professor of the National University of Mongolia and also the former chairperson of the COVID working group on the dry land and aggressive pastural systems, and a very warm welcome to Ambter Cop 16.
I hope that every participant and every negotiator in this space dedicated to Cop 16 enjoying our negotiations, et cetera.
This morning I do have the two heads, as I mentioned, as the professor of the National University and also the former the chairperson.
So this year is actually the very important year because cop 16 of the UN CCD opens the three dialogues in the environmental agenda, which is followed by the UN CBD and then UN CPC on biodiversity, and I mean that of course, the climate change.
So this negotiation taking into place in Lamba, which will be followed by those three reactions, environmental agendas, et cetera.
That's why I would like to also explain number three in terms of the Mongolian tradition.
Actually, the number three is a say that considered is a kind of lay Lucky number and also having very deep symbolic meaning.
Even the Mongolian children which they reach age of three, starting riding horses, starting with horses.
That means we have a number three the very symbolic and deep minded meaning.
That also this cop UNCCD CP 16, have a treaty the goals, I mean.
Of course, first is Mongolia is also champion interrod of the range land and pastoral.
That means the range lands IP is also very important for the stewardship at the very corner of the discussions and negotiations at the Cp 16.
And second, Mongolia cop bringing the step action agenda which is that the various centers initiative, specifically in action on the land dud neutrality platforms and also the coalition of the range states and proposing also the Eurasian Center for the Land and Climate.
And thirdly, as I mentioned, Mongolian Cop 16 is the first moving of the Israel Convention in 2026.
So those decisions which were taken in the lab in the Cop 16, it's a very creating the momentum for the following the environmental agendas.
So of course, the range lands, specifically the dry land is the very cornerstone because it's not only the rangeland dry lands covering trees, forest and every other rangelands and of the pastures.
As we're all aware that Mongolia has a tradition of the herders nomadic lifestyle.
Right now, according to statistics, more than 40% of the Mongolian population is still on the nomadic tradition.
So The second point is, of course, the drought is one of the key negotiation with the Cop 16.
Drought is actually the critical issue, specifically for the dry land regions, which is also the part of Mongolia taking this place countries like in Mongolia.
Be facing the drought, every corner of the world facing the drought.
But we trying to adapt to the drought, but we're suffering them, but we have to solve somehow to adapting this drought.
So the secondly, also that I'm also part of the negotiation team of Mongolia.
That's why I would like to say that range length and pasturf is also one of the key agenda for the Cp 16 and Mongolian team also recognizing and supporting this range lands which were the decision taken in the Cp 16, the previous Cp and we are supporting for the negotiation agenda to our host cop.
And also the As I mentioned, I was the former chairperson for that our working group on dry land agri pastoral system.
As we have a few days ago, we have the global gathering of the International Yor Rangeland and pastoralists and also the following the dialogue on dry land in the UN House in Mongolia.
This is the continuous efforts on our working group and at same time, reopening the global agenda and also the exchange of our uh common agendas to this place.
At the end, I would like to also say that the warm welcome to this event as a dream, as a dry land, global exchange on dry land forests in rangeland agri pastural systems, and I hope you will be succeed in the negotiations under COP 16 and the following the global environmental agendas.
I'm very happy to be here next to me, my friend, who is the former chairperson of the COP working group on the dry land and agricultural systems, and I wish you very success in our COP 16 and enjoy the weather and environment and tradition of our Mongolians.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Batu.
It's a pleasure to be here and I know you are also busy with the negotiations.
Thank you very much for taking time to be with us here.
If you have to go? No problem.
Please, a big applause for Bat.
He needs to go back to the negotiations.
With that is actually a great transition to you, Luis, Luis Latti is the current chair of the COFA working group, as you heard and he's really taking a lot of work and effort with us to move this working group to a level which we really need to see, which is really upscaling good practices for our Tland.
Please, can you tell us something about your work around with the COFA working group, how you see it, but also maybe introduce a little bit the COFA working group for people who might not be familiar with it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Aria.
Good morning, everyone.
Yes.
We are excited here as COFA Working Group.
Like has been said, my name is Louis Radzira.
I'm the chair of the COFA working group on dry and forests and Agil for pastoral Systems.
We are so much excited that we are continuing a dialogue that we started on Sunday before the COP 17.
I'm sure colleagues just highlighted the takeaways that came from that dialogue.
It was a robust discussion where we're seeing on ways we can come up with to address this critical issue.
Let me hasten to say that drought issues, they are very critical at this juncture.
We are talking of more than 2 billion people globally, which is about 27% of the world forests where people are benefiting from this drying forests.
In fact, they're actually facing a plethora of challenges that are being addressed by the three are conversions, which is loss of biodiversity in climate change issues as well as land degradation.
Now, we're having dialogue as a coffer working group trying to have synergies across the landscape.
We are a body that's the only statutory body of the of the United Nations where we focus on dryland forests.
Now, I'm being deputized by Turkey, which has got a robust monitoring system, and we had just a discussion during the side events that we need then to capacitate other countries across the CFR working group so that we improve the manner in which we manage our indigenous forests.
However, in Kenya, with us, we have been talking of ambitious tree planting targets that are actually achievable, planting about 15 billion trees by 2032.
Now, that's another layer of the CV working group.
We want to influence change across the landscape.
We have got also Namibia with us in the House who's also a member of the CF working group.
Yes, we have been battling challenges with bush encroachment in Namibia, but believe you me, in Namibia, we're actually making quite some proceeds as a country where we are actually now exporting, certified charcoal to the European markets.
This is a result of the Cof working group.
Yes, the discussion which we're having it then cabinate a cof working group.
That's where we then translate these agreements into actions on the ground.
So by and large, Our role is to advance the role of dry and forest in the global sustainability agenda.
We are here at Cop 17, and these are the issues that we need to pitch at that level so that we concentize everyone on the importance of these forests.
Also we review and report to the core for on the status our trends and issues and developing in dry land forests.
But more importantly, we then need to enhance and contribute to environmental and socio economic resilience and sustainable development.
By and large, we envisage in developing robust and actionable items.
Now, we had a discussion with Namibia, where they wanted to visit Kenya and see their adaptation plan, and take a cue.
The whole idea is for us to share ideas, and we started the reMs the regional exchange mechanism.
The first one, it was in Zimbabwe, that was in 2022.
We moved on last year in sometime in October when Maputo and the maybe a recent date in expo where we want to exchange ideas.
Precious Magwaza she's here from Zimbabwe.
We saw also the implementation of the dry and forest under F seven, which is being implemented in 11 countries.
They are the lessons learned there.
We then need to take a lessons and transde from being a pilot.
Right now, she's leading a successful project that is being implemented at a catchment area.
So the whole idea is now, we have seen what works well.
We had a discussion on Sunday and you know the trajectory path which we then need to pursue over and above that we had an opportunity to have the global Fire Management hub which was held in Zimbabwe.
I'm tying this with Spain, working in collaboration with the government of Senegal, and Idra in ensuring that we champion the dry forest.
But to this end, I need also to acknowledge the presence of Mr.
Simon Masanga, who is here, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Environment, climate, and Wildlife of Zimbabwe.
The government of Zimbabwe committed to host the fifth ECF for session in Zimbabwe, so we are all invited to Zimbabwe so that we continue shaping ideas and ensure that we upscale the dry forest because that is the lifeline.
All the issues that we are discussing here.
It resonates the resonates around the forests, dry and forest aggressive pastoral system.
That one is actually being a panacea to the challenge that we are actually grappling with it.
So the presence of the CF working group, let's make use of them and try to influence and bring the much needed change that we so much desire so that we restore the degraded land, I submit.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Luis.
Thank you for making all the linkages, how we are looking to move from programs and projects like the DSLP project is working well in the ground in 11 countries to a scale where we can really transform actually dry land globally by linking the work of different countries and bringing those initiatives which are working to a different level.
We really need looking at the crisis where we are going through.
Thank you very much for making this link.
Now, I would like to go to you, Clement and maybe you can introduce yourself.
But Clement, the question I have for you is very specific because you have been very active in the workshop like many of you here.
I would like you to give us a little bit of what did you take the key messages we had from the workshop we had in the 16th? Because the idea is really to take these key messages and recommendations and see how we can move in the future to bring them to the space of UNCCD but also other conventions, but particularly UN CCD, because we think that trees, forests, and aggressive pastoral systems are really important for UN CCD.
Please, can you give us your words of wisdom? Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you, Korea and the organizers for this side event where we discuss issues of dry land forests, the rangelands, and the agro sil for pastoral systems, and their contribution to the economy of the world.
To start with, just to introduce myself.
I come from Kenya, and I work with the Forest Service of Kenya, Kenya Forest Service, and this is the agency that looks at forest resources in the country.
Managing them for environmental purposes and livelihood issues for the communities that live within those ecosystems and those ones that are adjacent and even those who are living very far from these forests.
So I have worked in the service for over say, 15 years.
Three quarters of it as the lead in the dryland forest management.
That is the reason why I actually understand a bit of dryland issues.
I am a product of the dryland I was born in the dry lands.
I grew up there and it is because of those dry lands that I'm even seated in a very nice setting like this in this UNCCD Cop 17 action dome just to share experiences and to say that these dry lands, although the name sounds dry, they are not actually dry as the name presents itself.
In Kenya, we have 80% of the land considered as dry lands.
When you look at it the way it is printed in the map, it is actually painted red to show that maybe these are danger zones.
But actually, these are not wastelands as such.
These are very productive areas and what we only need to do is to recognize the value of this dry lands and see what comes out of it.
An area that is occupied by 40% of the population of the world is not dry as such.
We were just discussing with the Director of forestry from Zimbabwe and he was telling me, we were just saying if you were asked to choose between living in the cold area and the hot areas, where would you choose? We said we would prefer sitting under the sun than in the cold because you see this cold will look for you, even if you cover yourself how, there will be still some exposure in you.
So Dry land is very important and it has a lot of value to all of us, and that is why we are here discussing their values.
On Sunday, we started together, and there were some takeaways that I would want to share with us so that when we go back, we can be able to see how to promote them when we go back to our areas.
Number one, we said that They are people who are living in these dry lands, and they have coexisted in that ecosystem for quite a long time.
They have known how to survive under those dry conditions, and they have practices that they have always adopted to make sure that they live well in those areas.
So we need to recognize these community led practices.
They have very good lessons.
So we need to recognize these community led practices on how They have survived in those areas.
We need to protect their rights, safeguard the rights of those pastoralists and those people that are living there.
Number one, we need to strengthen legal and policy frameworks for drought preparedness.
This is something that when we do this, we will be able to see the value of the dryland.
Number two, we said that Yes, we are seated here and we will have declarations, and we will have issues and actions that we are saying, yes, we want to go and do it.
Can we turn these actions into reality on the ground? We need to turn these declarations and commitments into actions through strong implementation mechanisms, clear accountability, and more effective engagement with decision makers wherever they are.
We don't have to just make declarations and leave them there.
If we are able to convert them into actions, then we will be able to strike a change in the dryland.
Number three, we also said that we need to develop long term strategies that ensure that dryland priorities are consistently reflected in policy processes right from the local level, sub national level, national level and even at the international level.
We need to make sure that all these strategies are prioritized at all levels.
Number four, we said that we need to recognize, preserve, and integrate indigenous, local, and traditional knowledge into policies and planning and implementation.
Those indigenous knowledge, those traditional knowledge, we need to convert them into the policies and plans and make sure that we implement them.
Number five, we said in our meeting that we need to strengthen dry land knowledge base.
Dry lands have a lot that we can learn from.
And this knowledge is very, very important.
We need to strengthen this knowledge base through sharing this knowledge, we create and connect between research, policy, and the practices.
This knowledge that we have in the dry lands, we need to connect them and make sure that they are all interconnected.
Finally, six, there are very many, but let me just stop at six and say that we need to look at the dry land as an ecosystem.
This is an ecosystem where we have the dryland itself, we have people who are living there, we have the animals that are living there, and we have mobility as a practice in those areas.
These people have been able to manage to survive in those ecosystems.
We need to look at it as an ecosystem.
How have this mobility been enabling sustainability of those drylands? We look at the movement of the people in the dryland and we say, this is a very old system of lifestyle.
But actually, it is one of the ways of preserving the biodiversity and making sure that we restore the drylands.
When they do deferred grazing system, it is one of the ways of making sure that the drylands are not degraded.
Unlike the settled lifestyle where you live there and you are eating that grass throughout the day or throughout the year.
This deferred grazing system and the mobility of the pastoral is one of the ways of ensuring that the dry land is resilient in itself.
Therefore, we need to make sure that we recognize it as an ecosystem and learn from them and be able to convert this into even systems that we can be able to use it somewhere else.
Finally, we need to upscale those practices that have done well in those countries or in those range lands where these practices have done very well, we need to learn and upscale it to other areas so that we are able to make sure that we utilize the dry lands very well.
Therefore, those are a few of the takeaways that we were able to come up from the meeting, which was very successful and make sure that we can share together with you.
Thank you so much, Hora.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Clement.
This is really a good summary of what we had during this very engaging workshop where we had very different, a lot of representative from indigenous people, local communities, policymakers, scientists where we really wanted to bring all these perspective together because we think that aggressive opacular system drive for us need this holistic perspective because we cannot solve one problem.
We need to solve it in a very holistic way.
Thank you very much.
With that, I would like to give a big applause for this first panel here.
And I really thank you very much for being with us and for all your wisdom.
Now, I see that we are a little bit over time like always, and I would still like to give you just what is the thinking we're having behind this discussion about drought and the role of agro pastoral systems and forests for drought.
I would like to have the second presentation.
I will go very quickly over it.
I know a few of you who were in the workshop have seen some of the slides, but I will still want to show this presentation for the people who weren't there, but also just to give some ideas.
What are we thinking in the COFA working group when we think about creating those dialogues.
It has been said already from many of you that really aggressive or pastoral systems at dial centers are people.
We need to keep that in mind.
When we talk about aggress or pastoral systems, we are talking about people.
They are, of course, many other element in the aggro sio pastoral systems and those elements actually are interlinked and are integrated and they are used in different ways in a very flexible way, which is well adapted to the nature of those ecosystems.
They are not just defined by a combination of different land uses, different element.
They are defined by the management practices who are very old and they are created by the people.
Next one, please.
The second element which is really important for the aggressive pastoral systems are the animals, the livestock.
Livestock is at the center of those ecosystems and these really socioecological systems.
Those livestock, they have certain characteristic which make them really well adapted for these systems.
They have multiple purposes, they produce different product and that creates a culture and an identity around those systems.
It creates an identity of people using those products in different ways.
We are talking here about an interlinkage between people and nature in a very, very fine tuned way because this is not just one type of animal, there are many types of animals, many types of land uses, and they produce many types of products.
Next one, please.
Then our ancestors living in the systems, they find actually the best way to use those systems.
Because the dry land ecosystems, you cannot use them in a sedentary way.
You can, but then you are destroying them most of the time.
Mobility is actually the strategy It's a very sophisticated way of using the flexibility which exist in those systems.
This mobility is the one who created institutions and those institutions are very strong in the ground.
There is a lot of reciprocity, a lot of exchanges between different social groups.
That creates really a system while mobility is the mechanism of adapting to the flexibility and the variability.
People are not managing are not trying to control variability.
They are trying to live with it and that's why they created mobility.
This is really an important element.
We need to keep in mind why is it important in those systems.
Next one, please.
The biodiversity.
In dryland, most of the time we forget about biodiversity.
When we think about biodiversity, we always think, this is a big forest somewhere in the world.
But the biodiversity of aggros or pastoral systems and dry forests are really important.
As I said, because we have different element in the system, we have different biodiversities actually.
We have it in Agrarian production, but we have it as in the rangelands, in the forest, and those elements created a diversity of people using those systems.
We need to think about biodiversity as a social diversity.
When we reduce the number of the species, for instance, we get, for instance, we lose few trees there.
We are losing people and knowledge related to those trees and to the species.
This is super important.
This is the thinking we want to bring in the trialogues in those dreams we want to try.
Next one, please.
This is just showing that drought is really an issue we need to deal with.
It's already impacting what we have now.
But when you look at the IPCC numbers, we are really seeing that drought is going to affect people more and more strongly.
Next one.
We believe that trees and forest support to move from reactive drought to proactive drought management.
Because the reactive one is just we look at the drought, it's happening, we have a crisis, and then we deal with it while proactive drought management is assessing the risk, developing strategies with people together, and then applying them and learning from them and then going back again, redoing this cycle.
This is really important.
Trees and forest are green infrastructures for these proactive drought management.
Next one, I think we don't have.
Yeah.
Next slide please.
Now you have it already.
I think that drought you can go to the conclusion.
It's okay.
For the dreams we are having, we think that to be able to do these dreams, drought needs to be managed before it becomes a crisis.
What we have forests and trees, trees, and aggressive apostle systems are really infrastructure for this drought.
And we cannot manage the systems, as I explained before, our ancestors find a way to manage them in a very holistic way and we cannot separate them and fragment them and try to manage a part of them because it doesn't really give the nature of those ecosystems.
When we don't have those holistic approaches, we will have issues.
Here we have a publication.
You can find all these ideas if you want to screen the QR code.
That, I would like now to move to our last part of this side event.
As we said, people are really important and they are at the center.
That's why I would like to invite Junia, please to the floor and answer Enrique.
All.
We have been seeing all the time that people are super important, people in the ground.
Yes, please take any seat you want.
People are important and you have been actually working both of you with people in the ground and you have been a part of the workshop, and you have been really essentially being in this workshop.
I would like to start with you, Enrique.
You can introduce yourself, please.
I would like to see how our discussions in this workshops are linked to your work in the IYRP.
Thank you very much.
I am Enrique Michong veterinary from Peru.
I actually the co chair of the Global Alliance for Ranges and pastoralists, where a group constituted by more than 500 institutions advocating for the International Year of Reinsurance and Pastoralists.
Well, what I take from the workshop and thank you very much for inviting me to talk today is that, Silva pastoralist systems as a holistic approach for integrity.
And the paradigms has already changed.
So rangelands and rainforests are no longer seen as empty spaces.
Strong means to prove it are information as data, as knowledge built within two epistemologic systems from science and from local knowledge.
This is very important and very relevant.
Julia, you have already presented the main actors of this that are trees, agriculture, forage, animals, people.
I would like to detail a little bit why these are important for us or how the global alliance see the relevance of the systems, what I can take from the workshop.
I will start by trees.
Trees, but not any trees not anywhere, native trees, agriculture, but not speaking about intensive agriculture that may be mean for land.
We're speaking about environmentally friendly agriculture, agrloical agriculture to achieve land regradation neutrality.
That is one of our basic challenges that we're facing right now.
Forage, but not only cultivated plants, also rangeland management and mobility and access to land and you have presented brilliantly about mobility, vertical, horizontal, circular, and all our pastoralist practices that are ancestral heritage of our people, animals, but not only domestic livestock, we have domestic livestock, of course, that are our pastoralist animals, but we have also semi domestic animals.
We have also managed wild animals.
For example, in my country we have pecuns but we have also migratory birds, wild animals, we have buters, scavengers, we have predators, we have other herbivores that are part of our landscape integrity.
Finally, last but not least and more important people, our pastoralists, our people, that mean not only any people, very important people, culture, heritage.
Future sustainability.
This new paradigm that is actually not a new one that considering all this integrity and this holistic approach, it's being repeated in many places, for example, the one half approach.
I want to finalize, I'll conclude with this that these new paradigms are based on very old practices.
This is nothing new.
This is nothing new.
Now our task and our big challenge is to put these new paradigms into policies and to turn this into national, regional and turn this into actions.
Actions should touch ground and aggressivo pastoralism should be a great way to achieve sustainability and to support people.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Dunia, you have been working in the ground with women organizations in Lebanon and you have been very active in the workshop.
What did you take from this workshop and maybe we should take further in our discussions in the next dialogues.
Can you give us some insight from your perspective as a woman working in the ground with women? Yes.
Thank you so much for inviting me to take part in the workshop and today discussions.
It's a great pleasure to be here because I am founder and president of Women Association of Del Ahmad.
It's a local NGO in Lebanon situated in the Beka Valley of Lebanon, which is a dry land, a very nice ecosystem.
Where you can find the forest, the mountains, the valley.
It's a very nice ecosystem.
It was a dream when I began this initiative in 1991 to launch an initiative to support the local community in this area.
Why? Because they are leaving the land, they are leaving to the urban areas.
How we can support the dream was and how we can support this local community to stay in this land because they have a lot of challenges.
We are in dry land there.
That's why we launched this initiative and we built this organization.
There we didn't know that one day we will be here with such scientists and such international organization discussing about this.
This is why we begin supporting the local community empowering women because we are a woman organization, empowering women, supporting initiative on rural tourism, supporting tourism in the area, and building on protecting the environment also the biodiversity.
We make a lot of projects concerning these issues to support them.
And we built our rural development center.
Why I'm speaking about that because when you are making your presentation, we see our initiative going through this presentation.
We are the unit that is globalizing the research or the link with the government, with the research institute and we have all this global in our center making awareness, capacity building, this is how we are improving and supporting the local community and through the weekend initiative of the FAR which was the community of practice for women in Thailand, supporting the women exchange experience and making them more empowered, we are here today participating as a first time negotiator Yes, we are negotiator in this COP.
I've been in COP 15 as observer, but this time we are negotiator to the support of the weekend community of the FA and we participated in this important workshop where we share our ideas, we exchange our practices, and we put our recommendation for the COP.
This is very important to bring the voice of women from the local to the global and to bring the global also to our local communities and we translate or what you have presented in the workshop, in good practices on the ground.
This is what we are doing.
You speak about mobility.
So we are making annual event about transformance.
It's an event that we launch every year.
We are speaking about local knowledge.
We are making the food and the traditional knowledge and making them a product to support also the pastoral systems in our area to transform their products in good products available to send to the market.
This is how we can move and we can make a dream become reality.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Tunia.
Please, a big applause to these two very important people who are working on very important issue in the ground and we hope that we continue the discussion as we go because this is just a process and it's important that we walk the talk that's bringing really pastoralist women in these collaborations we are having and bringing their voices and their experiences.
Thank you very much.
Now, I would like to invite my colleague and friend Pedro, just to close with few maybe looking forward remarks.
Thank you, Pedro.
Thank you.
Thank you very briefly.
I don't want to interfere between you and the rest of your day.
We are also here to launch these dreams, these dialogues on dry land, forest, and Bra pastoral systems, specifically as agents of drug resilience.
So we are starting here, actually, we started at the workshop on 16.
We had this event today.
We are planning these dialogues to take part between now and the next COP and hopefully we will be able to distill all these messages that we have been here today, we have been hearing today from the different people that share the state.
You know, the best part of this event and the best part of this work is how very different people, people from government, people from universities, people from the ground local communities pastoralists are dialoguing together, are getting together to discuss the issues that interest them all and to bring at the same level the people actually doing things in the ground, with the people actually doing things in politics, with the people actually thinking on the future.
And with this future, with the CP 18 in mind, with the idea of keep collaborating with IRA with UCCD with the different governments that nominate experts to participate in the COFA working group on dry land with people on the ground, with international organizations, we can dream a vision on dry land, on drug resilience that could become to be true in the next months.
That's how we are launching these dreams actually and inviting on all of you to be part of the of the webinars, of the activities of the D school, of the different discussion of all the activities that we plan in the future.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for being here and see you around.
Thank you very much, Petro.
I see that we are 5 minutes over time, no, 10 minutes actually over time.
Thank you for being patient with us.
I thank all the speakers who have been here.
Thank you very much for being with us, but also for being in the workshop and sharing all your knowledge and your wisdom with us.
I also would like to thank Ira, UNCCD for the opportunities they offer here in this scope to work together and support this kind of thinking and these exchanges and also the government of Spain for supporting Ira and supporting through Ira.
Thank you very much for this and I wish you a very pleasant day, another one in COP and also take care and see you next time.
Thank you.