Warning of a looming global food crisis, a recent article in National Geographic highlighted the challenges of meeting humanity’s future food needs and discussed the need for further agricultural research, which—alongside agricultural yields—has flattened in the years after the Green Revolution of the 1940s-60s brought surges in yields of staple crops like rice and corn.  More public […]

Originally published at FAO Forests and family farms are part of an integrated productive system for indigenous peoples, local forest communities, and smallholders living in forested landscapes. Together forests and family farms deliver ecosystem services and benefits for livelihoods and well-being. The infographic illustrates the relationship between forests and family farms and highlights the advantages […]

Farmers do not have an easy life anywhere, much less in Asia with its booming but unequal economies and growing population – and climate change is not going to make it easier for them. But who has an even harder life than farmers? Women farmers. The challenges for women in agriculture, forests and water use […]

This was originally published on CIFOR’s DG’s Blog New York climate week offered an opportunity to reflect on ways forward for research, outreach and capacity development—three dimensions of CIFOR’s work—to help transforming these commitments into actions on the ground. In short—what does the summit tell us to do? One part of the summit program is dedicated to eight […]

This video features “the landscape approach to minute taking” of the high level discussion on integrated landscapes approaches for agriculture and forestry at the CGIAR Development Dialogues. It distilled the discussions into a colourful mind map in a 90 second timelapse video. The discussion was facilitated by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Speakers at this […]

See press release here Today the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced  the signing of  a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that is set to ensure better support for the functioning of critical ecosystem services that underlie food security. Both organizations are coordinating partners of the Global Landscapes Forum 2014 […]

  This post by Kate Evans was originally published on CIFOR’s Forests News A new partnership with Norway and Germany is an opportunity for Peru to put in place a comprehensive, public deforestation monitoring system by the time the country hosts the UNFCCC climate meeting in December, says Daniel Nepstad, Executive Director of the Earth Innovation Institute who will […]

  Interview with Uta Jungermann, Manager of the Forest Solutions Group of the World Council for Sustainable Development  In the 1990s, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a partner of the Global Landscapes Forum 2014, initiated a Forest Solutions Group (FSG), bringing together over 20 companies with a commitment to sustainable forest management. […]

To foster new thinking, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Earth Institute of Columbia University issued a challenge to six thought leaders on climate: Tell us your big ideas on how to change the future by challenging the present. The Colloquium on Forests and Climate: New Thinking for Transformational Change was part of New York’s Climate Week […]

 By Dhanush Dinesh, originally published at CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS)  In order for agriculture to be climate-smart, there is also the need to be water-smart, landscape-smart, energy-smart, knowledge-smart and gender-smart.   This week marks a very important period in history: world leaders are gathering at the UN Climate Summit in New […]

A public-private partnership of multinationals, governments, civil society and indigenous peoples pledged to cut the loss of forests in half by 2020 and end it a decade later in 2030, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) announced at the UN Climate Summit in New York. For the first time, 155 of these global leaders agreed […]

A project to bring  together ecosystem services, agricultural productivity, and smallholder livelihoods in landscape planning has been awarded an Innovation Fund grant from the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE). The project is will be implemented in Peru, Kenya and Tanzania, it says on the WLE website. It is co-led by the […]

This blog was written by Joan Baxter for Forest News, Center for International Forestry Research What on Earth does “integrated landscape management” mean? If you ask 78 different scientists, you just might get 78 different answers, participants at a recent land-use conference found. Consensus on definitions is a hallmark of science. When there is no consensus, though, things […]

  This blog by Terry Sunderland was originally posted at Forest News, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) The terms “landscapes,” “landscape approaches” and “integrated landscape management,” among similar “landscape-focused” terminology, underpin much of the discourse in contemporary research, donor and development circles related to conservation, agriculture and other land uses. The plethora of terms […]

Can the current climate change, food scarcity, forest conservation crisis be turned into a global revolution? Daniel Nepstad, Executive Director of the Brazilian Earth Innovation Institute, is convinced it can, and he takes his optimism from encouraging developments in Brazil. Progress has been made in slowing down deforestation in the Amazon, Nepstad says, and the different […]