Thematic Briefing on Economics of Rangelands and Pastoralists - Press Conference, UNCCD COP17

Hello, everyone.
Thank you very much for coming today.
It's Land and People's Day today and we'll be having a short briefing on on age Rising, investing in Sustainable Management and Restoration, which is a report that was launched during this scope and we'll be discussing today with two very important guests.
I have next to me, Mr.
Abdraman Wayne, who is one of the co author of the report, and he's from the International Livestock Research Institute, and Mark Sauer from G which is the German Development Agency.
And they will make some brief remarks and then you can ask questions and discuss the findings of this very important report.
I will start with you as the co author of the report and we can hear your remarks and your comments.
Hi, good afternoon.
Actually, I was cole of this report with Jonathan Davis and that was, as you can imagine, a long journey.
We start with a discussion paper in 2025.
Then when we noticed some gaps that may need to be addressed, we currently receive funding from BM Z and with the support of Z, we start developing this global report on Rangeland rising.
What was the addition of this Ranjan report? It's mainly about recognizing the role played by pastoralist as primary frontline investors.
We recognize that they continuously invest their time, their capital, their livestock, their social networks, and their adaptive practices in maintaining this very important landscape.
As the gender component were also very important for us.
So in this report, we tried to address as much as possible because there's no way to invest in Ranjan without taking into account the role played by women and youth and how to better integrate them in the decision making process, as well as in taking also economic opportunities.
That's, you know, my main message coming from this report was very proud and happy to co lead this team of almost ten high level scientists experts doing a great job and with the support of S again, we were very happy to timely produce these reports for the CP 17.
Thanks.
Thank you very much, Adraman.
Mark, we would like to hear from you now.
Thank you, Frasca and thank you for having me this afternoon.
Hello, everyone.
From the perspective of the economics Atlantic Relation Initiative, for us, this is another thematic report that we're supporting the agenda of the UNCCDc and at the last Cp 16, we contributed something as a flagship report on drought.
And we hope that this report led by I IUCN, and other partners, will have a similar impact to the discussions around range lands, which is super prominent here at the CP for the presidency and in this international year of rangelands and pastoralists.
ELD has done around 15 global reports over the couple of years now, adding regional reports there as well.
Our goal is always that we move from calculating costs towards identifying economic opportunities.
This is what we'd like to achieve with this report here as well, mobilizing investments into sustainable land management, especially in rangelands, and especially to the benefit of the pastoralists arise there.
Um, we think that the economic case is increasingly clear.
Investing in healthy land and rangelands is not like a cost to development.
It's an investment in numerous aspects, actually, resilience and food security, and climate, and biodiversity, also in long term economic prosperity.
For people living in this ecosystem and off this ecosystem, they're the pastoralists actually and we think that economic evidence provided by this report here can help us to move from the commitments states stakeholders are actually doing moving on to actual investment on the ground and this is what we're hoping to achieve here.
Investments into a sustainable approach and restoring degraded landscapes here.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We would like now to hear from you.
If you have any questions, just please raise your hand and mention the media that you're working off and your name.
Yes, please.
Thank you so much.
My name is Abdugai Majid.
I'm from Nigeria.
I report for Premium Times newspaper.
I'm just curious about your report on Rangelands.
We've been privileged to visit national parks here in Mongolia, and we saw some of the restoration efforts going on there across the Rangeland.
I would like to get some sort of insight, more insight about your report, your findings, the regions, what are the indicators? What does it say? How is the rangeland fairing across this region? What needs to be done more? What are some of the proactive steps you think parties participating at the conference needs to take back home and implement? Unless between now and five years to come, what do you think needs to change across your sample area based on the report? I just want to know more about it.
Thank you.
I guess this is for the co author of the report, the question.
Yes.
Thank you so much for your question, very clear.
This report was designed to clearly indicate what will be the economic rationale of investing in rational restoration.
The first financial and economic argument is just to say, 4-6 USD can be generated if you invest every dollar.
This is a new way to show that investing in range land restoration is not just only about charity, that makes lot of sense putting money on those range lands because the return on investment is there.
That's the first point.
And the other findings from the report is to clearly state, we want to go beyond, you know, greener lands.
That's, of course, one of the objective, but we need to have also healthier herds.
We need to have stronger and diversified incomes.
We need to have also lower vulnerability of population living in rangelands and on rangelands against, you know, various shops we can know in everywhere in the world.
Um, What was also interesting is to looking at all those case studies we bring in the report coming from Brazil, from Jordan, from West Africa, from Mongolia, that help us to really highlight this importance to integrate, even at the beginning of the Rangeland restoration, this economic lens because that can be a good way to incentivize private sector, maybe to be interested to invest on Rangeland.
Thing is, it's not about saying, okay, it's the job for the public sector.
Public sector we will continue to need to have this public sector involved because we need to have enabling environment.
But if you have all those things and those arguments, we can maybe go to see decision makers by saying, it's really making a lot of sense to invest in real restoration.
Why? Because a more than half of our range lands across the world are degraded.
We have invasive plants, we have some depending on context, we have more or less very deep degradation.
I think this is a big asset that should be taken care by policymakers, but also by all investors.
Again, recognize the frontline embors are pastoralists because they are living there.
For generations, they are trying to maintain this landscape.
That's some highlights we can get from the report.
Thanks.
Thank you very much.
Yes, of course.
Sorry.
I'd like just quickly to add a little bit here because we are teaming up here, so just adding.
I This report is meant also as a contribution to the flagship initiative that the Mongolian government and you and the CCD has set up.
You might have heard this range and flagship initiative now started with a very serious commitment by the Mongolian government, hopefully by other partners joining there as well.
We see some development there for next years and we hope that this report would provide an economic basis, a line of arguments there to push for these investments Abd Ramana has lined out.
So, you said you said government would stay in this and we see government as a basis for blended finance there.
We want to push the business case for staying in there and Abduhman said it already.
There is businesses who are depending on these arrangements here.
For them, investments into Improved resilience is also decreasing the risks for their businesses there.
So we want them to invest and we have good arguments for that.
We invite them to invest into sustainable range dance management and restoration to maintain these value chains and their line of work there.
We think putting a number, $1 value to the range dance there helps to commit this or to bring forward that message.
Economics can be some language in that context there.
Thank you very much.
Any other question? Yes.
Yeah.
We start from? Thank you.
I have two questions.
One, we know that scientific knowledge is passed down through more education, but we also have indigenous knowledge, which is with these pastores, which live in these ecosystems, which rarely is taught in school.
But most of the times it's passed down through practice or even orally.
What is being done to document this important source of knowledge.
Does the report address that? Two, there is the issue of methane which has been raised severally as produced by the animals, and we know it's more times potent even than the other greenhouse gas emissions as the report tried to address this as well.
Thank you.
Could you tell us your name, the media and to who would you like to respond? Sorry, my name is Eric Kasina.
I'm from Kenya, Business Daily newspaper.
And who would you like to respond? Without them could respond to this.
Thank you.
I'll leave up to you to choose.
Coming to your last point, we have very recent research about emissions by pastoralis.
I think we need to have this change of narratives.
Scientifically, we found emissions are compensated by the sequestration of carbon mainly by rangelands and livestock becomes not a problem for climate.
But the way we are doing livestock raising in pastoralism, looking at mobility and so on is part of the solutions.
We think we need to state it very strongly.
The last scientific publication we had show almost a positive balance.
I think that's something we need to put on the table.
And coming to your knowledge, I think when we talk about investment, it's not only about financial part of investment.
I think having those people spending their energy, their local knowledge, trying to looking at how to manage this very you know, very equilibrium context is something that shows that mobility is not something old strategy.
It's a sophisticated strategies that should be recognized because with the climate change and seeing the way personalis are trying to move and to looking at how to handle this distribution in space and time of resources is something that should be learned and should be shared with many people.
Thanks.
Yes, please, Mark.
Thank you.
Maybe just to add on the question on the indigenous knowledge there.
I think of course this is addressed and this report also makes a very strong case to support pastoralists and stakeholders as the main from a business point of view, investors there.
It's like a very small business, everybody in itself.
They invest into the rangelands, into the landscapes.
Of course, their knowledge about their surroundings, the value chains, production, their living and it is super important and has been considered there.
Just to put up another point here which comes back to Abd Ahman saying we need to invest.
We also need to invest and knowledge exchange there and not only from their set, but also back.
Why? Because we see that due to climate change and rapidly changing environmental conditions there they're living in, often the traditional knowledge is not sufficient anymore to cover the challenges they're facing in their daily lives.
We need to supplement them with knowledge that comes from additional studies, from research, from updated research there.
Maybe it's not The same tree species you would have planted five, ten years ago, which is adequate now because temperatures have risen.
Maybe because of changes in the course a river runs, you have to move to different places, otherwise, you'd be overgrazing with your herds there.
When we see examples here from Mongolia where they're encountering the, the super cold winters, which are dry as well when all the grass is freezing over and animals are basically dying of hunger because they can't reach the grass anymore.
This is an example where the herd is react with larger herds to be able to compensate for their losses.
Larger herds then lead again to more degradation, into some kind of vicious cycle they're stuck in.
So we have to provide other opportunities.
Abd Rrahmani said, healthier herds.
We have to make sure that if not more animals more animals make it through the winter without increasing the size of the herd, for example, I, support efficiency in that context.
Get different angles there when the indigenous knowledge is not sufficient anymore.
I just want to make that point.
I think Abdraman you'd like to add something? Yeah.
The report was looking at the investment case.
What is meaning successful investment? The paradigm was to say, it's not to have as only indicators the number of hectas restored.
We should go beyond this.
There is no successful investment without also taking into account the improvement of pastoral livelihoods.
We need to secure land and resource rights.
We need to secure mobility, of course, but mostly we need to continue investing, access to water, access to animal health services, access to climate information services, to finance, insurance, and access to good genetics.
I think we were very proud as Illy representing Irie on this report.
When we were invited by J and Diaz to lead this report, it was also to looking at how the research agenda can be bring in the game, if I can say, and we have many solutions regarding, you know, genetics, animal health, you know, dairy skiing and Kenya, we have many example we can provide.
So we need to combine all these to make this investment really successful.
Thanks.
Thank you very much.
A Yes, please.
Questions.
All right.
Thank you.
I'm doctor Salunda from the African Green Economic Review.
You're talking a lot about the investment in the new area.
We're talking about Branch Lynch.
We're talking about investment.
It's new narratives with regard to environmental issues.
And my question is really when it will come to go from the narrative of the report and going concrete you into investment.
Did you took a look into the financial mechanisms that need to be put in place in order to capture all the potential of investment in this area, specifically when it comes to A visions? And this is really what I wanted to ask.
I guess it's for Abdran this is why we were so proud to work with E, you know.
There is an entire chapter dedicated to innovative financial mechanism, going from a classic one and also as scientists, we tried to imagine some scenarios using branded finance as was mentioned by Mark.
We went really far on analysis, we were thinking about developing some debt swaps for nature, for instance, it's not very popular and we think we are giving some ways, some options that can be used to channel investment on range and restoration.
No, I think we all agree we need to restore those range.
That's the first point.
The second was to looking at and to identify if we have technologies to restore the Range technologies are there, then it was about looking at what is the feasibility to bring all those huge investment on Rangeland.
Uh, economic arguments are there.
When we say if you put $1, you can go and have four to six, is I think very big argument to put on the table.
Then the last that was chapter, I think 87 and eight was to looking at which kind of financial mechanism available, which kind of financing mechanism can try to imagine, to put in place, to facilitate.
It was not about this is what should be done, that's it.
In this report, that was the richness of this report to try to bring all those knowledge we bring from partners.
It was not only Uri, it was, many people was engaged in And in this report also we have many interviews with people on the ground in Saudi Arabia, in Brazil, and so on, just looking at which case was successful in terms of Ranjan investment.
Yeah, I just want to invite you to read the report.
It's here.
Thanks.
It Pm.
Just briefly.
I Especially in rent and investment conditions are super weak.
We know that.
There are insecure land tenure, land rights are often disputed, governance is difficult, and pastoralists are sidelined legally in the society often.
It's a high complexity with high transaction costs and often very insufficient monitoring there as well.
All these points make projects harder to scale up.
This is why I just wanted to say again, the need for blended finance is still there.
I think we make this in the report as well, emphasized that public investments need to be done to decrease risks and provide an option for private capital and that and this private capital has opportunities, especially in range lands there when we provide the fitting environment for it.
This report makes arguments to create an environment very well.
Any other questions? Yes, please.
Hello, everyone.
Not a question, but I'm part of the communication.
So for anyone interested in having the press release and the details of it, I'm happy to share that with you after this.
Thank you very much.
Also, just to add here that the press release has been published on the UN City website and has already shared, most of you must have it already in your inbox.
It was shared with all the registered journalists in Cp 17.
Thank you very much for the report also.
Is there any other question? So I would like to know if there was and I will ask both of you.
I will ask from you, Mark, and then you go to Abdraman if you had to say only one message from this report, but only one, what would that be? I mean, people, what will they remember? They read it and what should they keep in their mind by reading it? If there's a headline, I would put investments into range lands payoff just in capital letters.
It pays off and these investments, I'm putting another sentence or another message here, need to be committed or realized through the stakeholders underground because they are the ones most affected, but also I critical for the implementation of all these restorations, just strengthening their case.
What will be your message? Almost.
My message is to say we cannot successfully restore range lines without investing in empowering the people who have managed them for generations.
We need to combine the both things to make it successfully.
Thank you very much.
I think that's the most important that restoration cannot happen without the people.
I think is something the main message from COP also.
Thank you very much.
As I said, the presence of this report has already been said.
It's also on the UCCD website.
But if any of you want additional information or any interviews with our speakers, we'll be happy to arrange it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.