As UN climate talks stall, experts identify new approach to tackling climate change, food insecurity and poverty.
‘Fragmentation is our enemy’: why we must work together across landscapes
Warsaw, Poland 17 November 2013 – Global experts made an impassioned plea to change the way the world is tackling food insecurity, climate change, water scarcity and poverty and warned that UN climate negotiators in Warsaw risked “turning their backs on some of the most vulnerable and poorest people in the world”.
“We are wasting precious time as a result of disjointed, discombobulated dance,” Rachel Kyte, World Bank Vice president for Sustainable Development, told participants at the Global Landscapes Forum, held on the sidelines of climate talks. If the world continues “to fund crop expansion on one hand but forest protection on the other, we are simply wasting taxpayers money.”
Experts called for a ‘landscape approach’ to rural development, hailed as a way to bring together agricultural, forestry, energy, and fishery sectors to come up with collaborative and innovative solutions to ease increasing pressure o the world resources which are threatened by climate change.
“Landscapes are not just an important part of the solution. They are the solution,” Peter Holmgren, Director General of the International Forestry Research, told the forum’s 1200 participants from 120 countries.
“We must put our hope in landscapes. Fragmentation is our energy and a recipe for disaster,” he added.
The recent disaster in Philippines should be a call to action on climate change, said Bruce Campbell, Director of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security.
“How many super storms will we have before the world starts to take climate change seriously? As a scientist, I know we have the knowledge we need to act, so lets do it.”
Historically, farming, fisheries, energy, and forestry have been managed in isolation despite their many links. Agriculture is the chief driver of deforestation even though it depends on forests for water pollination and other ecosystem services.
Speaking at the conference, His Royal Highness Prince Seeiso Bereng Seeiso of the Kingdom of Lesotho described himself as a ‘messenger for Africa’ and said, “the impact of climate change on livelihoods levels and the environment has been disastrous.
The Global Landscapes Forum was co-convened but the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) on behalf of other 14 organizations of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests and buy the CIAGR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), on behalf of an international consortium of 12 leading Agriculture and Rural Development organizations in collaboration with the host country partners Poland’s Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the University of Warsaw.
Comments
About Author
