The first Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) convened on Saturday and Sunday, 16 and 17 November 2013, at the University of Warsaw in Poland, on the sidelines of the 19th session of the Conference of the Parties (cop 19) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Forum combines two annual conferences, Forest Day, and Agriculture, Landscapes and Livelihoods (ALL) Day (previously Agriculture and Rural Development Day (ARDD)) , with the aim of creating a global platform to inform and engage world leaders, policymakers, scientists, donors, media, civil society, the private sector, indigenous and community groups, and climate negotiators, on the role sustainable landscapes can play in providing food, shelter, income, ecosystem services and environmental goods.
The event brought together more than 1200 participants in Warsaw, with an additional 1500 joining via webcast. A core objective of the event was to develop the potential of the landscape approach to inform future unfccc agreements and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To this end, the GLF was organized along four main themes: investing in sustainable landscapes in forests and on farms; landscape policy and governance for forestry, agriculture and other land uses; synergies between adapting to and mitigating climate change in forest and agricultural landscapes; and landscapes for food security and nutrition. In addition to various plenaries, sub-plenaries, and technical and networking sessions, a Gender Café and Youth Forum convened.
A high-level panel explored how to feed perspectives and insights from the GLF into the post-2015 development agenda process. During the closing plenary, two unfccc negotiators highlighted the status of agriculture- and forest-related negotiations at cop 19 and expressed hope that the practical experiences shared at the Forum will provide a fresh impetus to the negotiations. GLF organizers subsequently handed over a draft outcome statement to the two negotiators involved in the agriculture- and forest-related workstreams to forward to the COP. The final statement will be available on the GLF website at http://www.landscapes.org/
The GLF was co-organized by the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, the Agriculture and Rural Development Consortium, the Polish Ministries of Environment and Agriculture and Rural Development, and the University of Warsaw, in collaboration with more than 60 organizing partners.
This report provides an overview of the discussions that took place in all the plenary sessions, as well as selected parallel discussions and technical and networking sessions. It also highlights discussions during the half-day Youth Forum on 16 November, and provides a brief overview of the Gender Café.