Tony Simons – Remarks on forest landscapes: Landscapes for climate and development

Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre, Tony Simons, delivers remarks on forest landscapes at the opening plenary from the second day of the Global Landscapes Forum 2014, in Lima, Peru, during COP20. In 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals will replace the Millennium Development Goals. At the UNFCCC COP21 in Paris, international leaders are expected to reach a new climate agreement as successor to the Kyoto Protocol. This panel discusses how the new climate and development agendas will offer unprecedented opportunities for a number of sectors to jointly support healthy and sustainable landscapes.

Sunday, 7 December 2014

Global Landscapes Forum, Lima, Peru

#COP20GLF #ThinkLandscape

Tony Simons – Remarks on forest landscapes- Landscapes for climate and development (Transcript)

TS:                      [0:07] Good morning, everyone. My name is Tony Simons, and I have the privilege to head the World Agroforestry Centre. And I’ve been asked this morning to speak about partnerships. And many of us like to speak in metaphors, and already this morning we’ve heard about sandwiches and about church. And if we think before Global Landscapes Forum, we had a lot of energy but also a lot of sin. But now that we have the partnerships of the Global Landscapes Forum we have synergy. So, to help Peter Holmgren get to 10 million tweets, let me repeat that. Before GLF, we had energy and sin. Because of GLF partnerships, we now have synergy.

[0:59] The Global Landscape Forum was launched to build stronger relationships between science, policy, advocacy and development. It is a superb manifestation of partnerships, bringing together countries, sectors, institutions, disciplines, and diverse actors. It is therefore appropriate that we spend a few minutes reflecting and celebrating on these nested, interlinked, and complementary partnerships. One of the defining features of the Global Landscapes Forum is its inclusive nature. As can be revealed by the wallpaper logo of the program. And few initiatives can match this. A staggering 95 organizations involved. To single out any individual institution or founding partner is not meant to undermine that ethos, but rather to highlight its strength.

[2:06] Now, standing out as an exemplary contributor and supporter to the Global Landscapes Forum is the Collaborative Partnerships on Forests. And here we acknowledge the effective leadership of the CPF by FAO, represented currently by its chair, Eduardo Rojas-Briales, who opened GLF yesterday. The CPF is a unique, voluntary partnership which dates back to 2001. It consists of 14 international organizations and secretariats that have substantial programs on forests, of which nine members along with FAO are strongly featured at GLF two. Indeed, at 4.1 billion hectares, how could we ignore the single largest component of terrestrial landscapes? The world’s forests. Now, you may not be aware that the Global Landscapes Forum has its roots in Forest Day, which was a CPF initiative under the leadership of CIFOR.

[3:17] As mentioned my Rachel Kyte yesterday, last year in Warsaw, Forest Day was merged with Agricultural Day to create the Global Landscapes Forum. And just as CPF members played a prominent role in Forest Day, the CPF has continued its strong support for the Global Landscapes Forum. A comprehensive, formal statement on the support by Collaborative Partnerships on Forests can be found on the CPF, FAO and GLF websites. Please check out these websites, just to remind yourselves how important forests and CPF are in helping solving many of our pressing global development challenges.

[4:05] Now, another significant partnership supporting GLF from the agriculture natural resource domain is the CGIAR. This is an amazing consortium of 15 research centers and 16 research programs. And 10 of these centers are involved in GLF two. Interestingly, one of these 15 CGIAR centers, the International Potato Center, has its global headquarters right here in Lima, supporting root and tuber research throughout the developing world. Together, the CGIAR represents more than a billion dollars annually in research and development. And you would be hard pressed any landscape anywhere in the developing world untouched by the impacts of the CGIAR over the last 43 years of its existence.

[5:03] But, as large and as omnipresent as the Collaborative Partnership on Forests and the CGIAR are, they cannot tackle landscape approaches on their own. And it’s only when we have national and sub-national governments, regional agencies, private sector, NGOs, community based organizations, universities, regional agencies, certification bodies, foundations, OECD donors – I’ll slow down for the translators – multilateral agencies, as well as most importantly the 500 million landscape stewards of the world can we say we are approaching sustainable landscapes. Now, isn’t it great that we’ve got a Unilever? But we also need a Multilever. And that Multilever is all of you.

[6:00]So, more power to the Global Landscapes Forum. More power to CIFOR. More power to all of you in those partnerships. In closing, perhaps the biggest partnership we need to focus on are the urban-rural linkages. By 2050, 70 per cent of us will live in urban areas, representing less than two per cent of the land area. And our food and water and energy will come from the other 98 per cent of land, managed by just 30 per cent of those people. And that real winning partnership we seek is that linkage between geographic landscapes and human landscapes. So thanks to everyone for helping to celebrate our collective partnerships, and we’d ask you to give a warm hand to our fascinating and inspiring panel and moderator this morning.

[7:11] And remember, those people who use sustainable landscape approaches live longer.