WWF: Landscapes of Life – a nature-positive global agenda to protect, manage and restore grasslands, savannahs and rangelands - Press Conference, UNCCD COP17

There we go.
Sorry.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you for joining us.
My name is Peter McFeely.
I lead Communications for Food and Agriculture at WWF.
We're here today to showcase a multi stakeholder action agenda for grasslands, savannas, and rangelands that has been developed by over 70 organizations here at UNCCD to look at how we can drive implementation and action on the ground in these vital ecosystems, and then we're also going to showcase some of the partnership platforms that are already in existence to drive that action.
We have four speakers with us, an Campari, the Global Lead for Food and Agriculture in WWF, Zen Scanlon, excuse me, the Chief of Communications, External Relations and Partnerships for the UNCCD, Yoko Wantanbe, the Director for Environment at the Asian Development Bank, and Madame Badam, our country Director in WWF Mongolia.
First, I'll pass to Joal, who will kick things off for us.
Thank you.
I'll just add as well, of course, there'll be a question and answered opportunities for questions at the end after all four speakers.
Thank you very much, Peter.
Good afternoon, everybody.
Delighted to be here to talk about grasslands, savannas, rangelands, and also about the important partnerships that we at WWF have with many of the stakeholders, including UN CCD and ADB as well.
So let me get going here.
I'd just like to remind everyone some important facts and figures about why we are focusing a lot on grasslands, rangelands, and savannas.
These landscapes are generally overlooked.
When you go around the pavilions, you will see everybody talking about these overlooked ecosystems.
Or biomes, if you will.
But these are important natural systems that generally do not get ranked as high as they deserve in global policy agenda.
At this cop, the facts have been pretty much well established, but I'll repeat them anyway so that we can have the numbers before we even begin to say anything that we're going to be doing with grassland Savanna's arrangements.
These natural systems cover about 54% of our land on the planet.
Host 80% of the world's agricultural productive land.
They sequester about 33% of the global.
They have in stock about 33% of the carbon stocks.
They are home to about 25% of the world's population.
However, They are only 10% of them are legally protected.
Oftentimes, protection of other ecosystems or other natural systems like forest displaces conversion and production into grasslands, such as the decays in Brazil, for example, I'm from Brazil and we have the Amazon and the soil being displaced to important places in the Sharo of Brazil.
This is not uncommon to happen.
Grasslands get converted at a very high rate for unsustainable food and agricultural production.
Um, and actually their rate of conversion is four times the rate of conversion for.
So let's keep that in mind as we go along.
It's quite clear to see why action is so desperately needed to deliver benefits for people, nature, and climate.
Grasslands, savannas and rangelands truly are one of the greatest synergy points for multiple agendas in the Rio Conventions and beyond.
You can see lots of stakeholders coalescing around and converging around the need to protect, sustainably managed, and restore them all over this convention here in Umbor.
As it is the most prominent solution for their protection, sustainable management restoration, as I said, food and agricultural systems transformation is a must.
Need to move from the business as usual way that food and agriculture is produced into a state of nature positivity.
We need to work with nature positive agricultural production, not only on grass and savannas, but everywhere that produces food.
Why is that? Because food and agricultural production drives about 70% of the biodiversity loss.
Are responsible for 33% of greenhouse gas emissions, 70% of water withdrawals and so on and so forth.
Applying or adopting nature positive agricultural practices will provide numerous benefits and ensure that we not only halt degradation in rangelands, but that we rehabilitate soil health and restore ecosystem functions in areas that they have been suffering or have been degraded.
Like grasslands, savannas and rangelands, food and agriculture has often been overlooked and underfunded.
If we truly want to create impact, there must be an investment in these natural spaces, both financially and politically as well.
The progress so far at Cp 17 on these issues with positive signals from negotiations was the launch of the Range Land flagship Initiative yesterday.
I hope many of you have been able to witnesses the commitments that have been made.
It's $1.2 billion pipeline of finance that was launched yesterday.
This is really encouraging news for us.
But as Her Excellency Executive Secretary, Yasmin Fouad said in the launch yesterday, for Cp 17, be a cop of implementation, there must be involvement across all stakeholders, not just in negotiation rooms, as we heard and not just from donors, but from everyone.
Which brings me now to landscapes of life.
Moving from commitment to implementation is the crucial next step.
Over the weekend, it was Saturday and Sunday, WWF and Sustainable Fiber Alliance, we convened a gathering and approximately 200 stakeholders from more than 70 organizations across the rangelands, savannas, and grasslands community to react to what has been happening at Cop 17 and what we have been seeing on the ground and in these landscapes over the past number of years.
The event gathered scientists, policymaker, pastoralists and local communities, conservation and development experts, private sector representatives, and financial institutions.
Together, Um, we developed a shared agenda to protect, sustainably manage, and restore these vital ecosystems.
I'm proud to formally introduce landscapes of life, a shared agenda for grasslands, savannas, and rangelands, it was published today.
And the shared agenda has five main key action areas.
I will read them to you now.
The first one and there is no obviously a particular order of importance across the five.
So let me start with the first action item that we put in this collective document.
It's to secure rights and ensuring local pastoralists are included in decision making.
Action two is managing grasslands as a connected social, ecological and productive systems.
Action three is making sustainable range land management economically worthwhile.
Four, using systemic indicators to inform management decisions and action five is fixing policy fragmentation and creating the conditions for delivery.
The unifying message that we put in the document was quite clear.
It's that grasslands savannas and rangelands need to be recognized and managed as productive, biodiverse, social, and resilient landscapes.
It is time for us all to move from recognizing the importance of these natural systems to changing how they are governed, financed, and managed.
We call on other stakeholders, including parties to UN CCD, to scale investment and resources to drive positive benefits to nature, climate, and people.
But what is more important is that the organizations that have co developed these agendas are committed to implementing and driving impact on the ground.
That's where the focus is right now.
Now, at WWF, our work on grass lands range lands at Savannah span across about 17 countries that we have engaged.
WF works in more than 100 countries and almost 20 of them are engaged in the work and implementing action on the ground in this natural system.
Our goal is to double the area under protection and sustainable management while supporting community led restoration and ensuring equitable sharing of benefits derived from ecosystem service and nature based solutions.
Our partnerships and WF does not work alone, no one could work alone given the size of the challenge that we have ahead of us, but our partners are so crucial if we are to deliver that goal.
We are in constant dialogue with more than 300 organizations, but I want to highlight how we are working with two of them, incredible partners that are here sharing this table.
It's the UN CCD and ADB.
It's an honor for us to be working alongside.
Ever since the UN Food System Summit, which ended in 2021, WWF and UN CCD have worked close together.
We are delighted to announce that we have formalized that partnership by signing an MOU to enhance cooperation and support the delivery of the UN CCD mandate.
The MOU focuses on collaborative program design, joint resource mobilization efforts, capacity building to scale nature positive agriculture, jointly developing and promoting innovative financial mechanisms and working with the private sector at scale.
Already we are seeing the benefits of this partnership.
It enables us to develop very large programs.
For instance, a significant $25 million proposal that we have been able to begin the mobilization and the design of the project for work in Zimbabwe.
Would also like to highlight how we are building a partnership with ADB to unlock funding that can restore grassland, savannas and rangelands and deliver multiple conservation and development benefits.
We are already partnering on the Nature solutions Finance Hub and supporting the Mongolian Cop 17 presidency over the next two years.
In addition, we are exploring many ways that we can implement these programs here in Mongolia and in other countries as well.
We are delighted to have this partnership with ADB.
So just to conclude my remarks, as you probably are aware, WWF's mission is to build a future in which people and nature thrive in harmony.
Food and agricultural systems transformation is one of the central pillars of delivering this mission.
Given the rate at which agricultural and food production are converting nature and, you know, uh, causing harmful impacts on nature and climate and people.
If WWF would not work on food, we would not have a mission in the end.
This is how critical we place food and agricultural systems transformation at the core of our agenda, what we call the roadmap towards 2030.
And the framework that we use for guiding our work on food and agriculture is called the nature positive approach in which we need to protect natural habitats from further conversion to food and feed production.
We need to sustainably manage the places that are producing food in land and water and also rehabilitate soil health and water systems that have been degraded so that we can have sustainable food production.
Without much further ado, let me give you the word back to you, Peter, so that you can conclude this.
Thank you very much and thanks for our partners, UN CCD and ADB that are sharing the table.
Thank you.
Thank you, Swel.
A lot of information there, but I'll now pass over to Zena from CCD.
Good afternoon and thank you so much, Peter, and thank you, Guard for inviting UNCCD to be part of this press conference.
Indeed, we're very happy to be here on this stage with our very two important partners, WWF and ADB.
For those of you who might not know, the Secretariat of UNCD is only about 80 people.
With the global mandate and with 197 parties, 196 countries and the European Union who have signed the convention.
For a small convention Secretariat, we can only achieve and advance our mission through partnerships.
This is why for us, this is critical and essential for us to be able to translate the decisions that are being made by the parties to the convention into implementation on the ground, which as we've heard, is what is prioritized for the scope and the upcoming years.
And to also give meaning to some of the decisions that are being made.
In particular, the partnership with WWF seeks to advance those two very key and critical decisions that have been made already at the RT Cop 16 and which are again being discussed here this week at CP 17.
The first one was already mentioned that is on range s.
Again, this is incredible ecosystem and an incredible agenda that really has come of age and here in Mongolia in conjunction with the International Year of Range Ls and Pastoralists is really where rangelands and pastoralists will be center stage of the discussions.
It's so gratifying to see that through the initiatives such as the Ranges flagship Initiative and others that are being announced, this is really taking shape both in terms of policymaking but also implementation at scale.
The second one, again, that was mentioned by Jean, and this is where our collaboration started, as you reminded us, is on the food systems.
Again, the food systems is something that has a huge relevance for the climate agenda, for the biodiversity agenda, and of course, for the land agenda.
For us, an important decision that emerged from Cp 16 was on the restoration of degraded agricultural lands and here again at Cp 17, our parties will be giving us further guidance on how they see this area being developed, but we know that through the food systems, we can certainly, and we have no choice but to advance the dual objectives of really feeding the growing populations around the world, while at the same time preserving the very natural resources that we require.
Let me just also end by saying that we have been collaborating with WWF for a long time on many different topics, and it probably has taken us a little while longer to formalize this cooperation.
It's actually quite interesting that it's only happened earlier this year, but we very much look forward to working together with WWF, ADB, and other partners and we stand ready to support the important work of really, Translating the policy outcomes into action at scale across our 196 countries in the European Union that are our parties.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Zena.
Yoko Wanba I'll pass, please to you.
Great.
Thank you very much, Peter, and thanks so much for WWF for bringing us together for this press conference and also, of course, you and CCD for really having this successful Cp 17 here in Mongolia and bringing all the 197 parties coming together at this juncture, really really appreciating.
I have to say, I have started my conservation and development career here in Mongolia, WWF Mongolia.
This is coming full cycle for me, representing Asian Development Bank here as a partner working together.
This is really momentous for me as well and a big B to everybody.
Um, so I just wanted to start by saying that this is really a momentum that every partner came together to bring in this action agenda together.
And as you mentioned UN CCD, really believes in partnership, and ADB also, of course, believe in partnership that every partners have different strengths like technical strengths, finance, sort of bringing the finance and also scientific knowledge from the academia and the NGOs and others.
We all really need to bring these actors together.
So with You know, this is a really important initiative to bring forward together.
And in terms of just a background as some of them has been already shown by Joel, but the UNCCDs own assessment shows that there is a gap of 355 billion a year towards 2030 to really restore land and desertification targets.
Currently, the level is still 77 billion, meaning that still around 300 billion a year is needed.
So To close this gap, what ADB realized is that it's not a shortage of finance from the public and private sector in many reality.
It is the bankable projects and how we invest in it is more the issue and we need to do that in partnership as I started this conversation because no single organization can close this gap.
And let me direct you know about where the constraint sits.
The capital is there, but not being able to take the risk to invest in it.
What we really need is a concessional or a grant resources to do the needed assessment, to bring the needed financing structure, and also develop a very strong viable investment portfolio and a project that others who are interested can invest in it.
And enabling that we really need a platform and a support.
What we Asian Development Bank have done is we built the Nature Solutions Finance hub in 2033 at Climate Cop 28 in Dubai.
It targets 5 billion to be catalyzed from partners.
We ADB is already ready with a pipeline to support these initiatives like working on watershed or working on forests, working on dry land, and also rangeland management.
And bring in the needed capital not only just from the public sector, but private sector, and we're aiming that this 5 billion target can be achieved with our pipeline development.
What I really want to again emphasize is that this is ADB led, but this is a partnership between AFD, BM Z, GIZ, and EU as well, GCF and GF and also OPEC Fund and UK involved as financing partner.
And financing partner can do one thing, bringing in the resource and catalyze other resources.
But the very important thing is we have a very strong technical partners, and that's WWF and birdlife, Conservation International, IUCN, Nature Finance, and TNC, the Nature Conservancy.
I have to emphasize here that ADB and WWF have been enjoying a 25 years of partnership, starting in 2001, and we have been celebrating our long term partnership this year as a 25 year anniversary.
This is really a momentous initiative that we're moving forward.
Finally, I want to inform again that yesterday our vice president announced the Field Initiative.
It stands for financing investments and eradicating land degradation and desertification.
What this does, this is a dedicated window to address dedicated land restoration and drought resilience and rangeland and dry lands in the region of Asia and Pacific and we're targeting $2 billion for investment.
We already have quite a strong pipeline in Central Asia and also in other countries and we're finding that 15 bankable projects as a target to finance both women and men and have a strong participation and inclusive approach towards it.
Second is the Mongolia's initiative, and this is a legacy initiative for the Cp 17.
ADB has been working on the IMAG and some rural development project and we have established a fund dedicated for working on rangeland and grassland management.
Because as we were informed, 70% of Mongolia's rangelands are degraded and we really need to take urgent action on it.
So what we are trying to do is to develop this green investment and resilient agribusiness financing Fund, the Giraffe, and this is 117.6 million fund that is bringing herders and cooperatives and micro enterprise and agribusinesses and support about 500 cooperatives and thousand micro enterprise working on rangeland grassland management together.
So I just really wanted to emphasize that we are really looking forward to working and bringing the strength of definite organization.
ADB is ready to take our own role to bring in the partnership and also our finance, both concessional as well as grant finance and also regular loan, as well as policy lending.
We also work and issued a biodiversity bond at the COP last time in biodiversity COP.
We're also working on a nature credit and different mechanism that can help on this issue.
Finally, to close, we really look forward to our further collaboration with WWF and UNCCD and many partners have joined to bring this action agenda further and looking forward to a further collaboration.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Yoko.
Lots to talk about partnership, finance, implementation, and I think it's fitting, last but not least for Bam to talk to us about what that actually looks like on the ground here in Mongolia.
Hi.
So thank you very much.
I'd like to start actually with the landscape of Life program or event that we have just held over the weekend.
WWF Mongolia was delighted to host this event and having the people partners, long time partners together, you know, um, discussing the themes on how to protect, manage, and restore grasslands and, you know, dancing together, walking together to get to know the area, to get to know the Mongolian landscapes has been very fun and it has been a very big achievement.
And we were asked the team of 32, the Mongolia team was delighted to hear the feedback from our partners and, you know, from our people that they were prepared, they felt prepared for this Cp 17 event, water to talk, and they understand the objectives of the UN CCD, why they selected Mongolia, what the landscape is like, what the solutions and issues are.
So we were happy about that.
Now, I would like to talk about the WW of Mongolia, So WWF Mongolia has been actually working over the past 30 years in cooperation with the government of Mongolia and our fantastic and amazing partners such as the UN CCD ADB and other organizations.
So we actually focus on three areas, geographic scope, our approach is actually ecoregion based approach, landscape based approach.
We are very inclusive.
So we have selected actually two very important ecosystems, ecoregions, of global importance for biodiversity conservation.
One is the Al San in the West and the other region is actually Al Amhaln in the East.
So Western Western and Eastern Mongolia have been our target to support the herder stay, to support a livelihood stay, to support wildlife and animals.
So when we had our um, uh, a strategic document for the 2026 to 2030, we actually selected one more target area, which is the Kobe region where we have, you know, super animals, Cobies migratory species need to be protected there as of national importance.
So we actually focus on three priority ecosystems just mentioned and two species groups, you know, and wildcats and Gbious migratory species.
This is about us, WW of Mongolia has contributed to taking about 36% of the land under state protection.
We're very proud, very science focused science based organization, whatever you do, we want to do it properly with accurate data and monitoring and evaluation and everything as a whole.
So if I have more time, I would like to give some examples, share some of the examples of our work on the ground about what we did actually, or what we do about protecting the grasslands.
Protecting restoring and grasslands.
One example actually, I would like to cite as a very excellent cooperation with the government of Mongolia and also the FAO FAO, we worked together to implement a very relevant project.
The name of the project is actually promoting dry land, sustainable landscapes and biodiversity conservation in the eastern steps of Mongolia.
This project was implemented in 2021-2026 and actually, we were funded by the GF GF and the resource partners were us FAO and WWF.
We operated across nine zones in six nature reserves in the eastern Mongolia.
The objective was exactly the same and similar to what we are discussing here.
To reverse and prevent dryland ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss through an inclusive integrated landscape and value chain approach in securing the sustainable and resilient livelihood hoods in the eastern steps of Mongolia.
So we actually had four objectives, but I'd like to focus on two objectives.
One was to strengthen the enabling environment for the sustainable management and glands and scale them up.
So, number one, I would like to mention is that we had this integrated land management planning.
So land management is the source of everything.
If we are careful, they are successful in this, then we can succeed in many of the other agendas.
So, um, We actually supported the land management plans at the state, the regional, and SOM and AMC levels, and we integrated it.
We made it so inclusive that the herd groups, the SOM governors and everyone who were relevant in the land, they were included in the governance and the governance was so much improved, and we actually came up with the methodology to it had it approved by the relevant government organization, government authorities, and had it ready to scale up.
This contributes to the agenda, our agenda to have integrated approach to the land management.
So we had a different lands arrange the management.
So we promoted the resting and rotational pastures for the land.
Uh, and, you know, also another area we worked together is actually with our partners, strengthen the biodiversity conservation, and landscape connectivity.
So, we actually thought that it was important to now I'm going to be very specific in a few areas.
So we actually introduced innovative practice to reduce pressure on the pasture lands.
So we had three models.
One is the feed production at the winter campsites for herders.
So they were encouraged to feed to provide the feed, you know, produce their own feed.
And the second module was actually livestock feed production by the herd groups.
We supported cooperatives to join forces together so they can be very efficient.
For the production.
The third one is actually contract Pharm Solution to resolve conflicts.
Another I wonder if I have time.
Okay.
So one more area just to specify what we do is we actually identified 65 core habitats and 157 connectivity areas in the eastern Mongolia under this project and reflected the them in the land use plan so that we would you consider the needs of the wildlife for the linear, you know, infrastructure development and also for, you know, the better management of the lands.
So thank you very much.
Thank you, Bada.
Very inspiring work and I think to see that impact.
That's everything for our four speakers.
We have a few minutes now, time for a couple of questions if anybody would like to ask anything of any of the four speakers.
Okay.
In that case, I'd just like to close, thank you all for coming and attending.
I'll say as an employee of WWF, I'd just reiterate the mission that Sao expressed for our organization to build a future in which people and nature thrive in harmony.
While that's sort of our language, I think it's really something that everybody sitting here is working towards.
It's really a shared outcome that we're trying to achieve.
The levels and scales of outcomes can only be achieved through partnership.
We're very, very proud and honored to be able to work with such impactful partners and to be able to deliver that scale of implementation and action on the ground.
In Mongolia and in other countries all over the world.
So thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for organizing.
No question Yeah.