Climate change, biodiversity, desertification – what connects ? Do we have the knowledge and tools for effective Sustainable Land Management? How can we work together to restore land and boost resilience ?

Join this joint panel discussion with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE UniBe) and with the exceptional presence of Mr. Ibrahim Thiaw, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Join the session by registering here.

WOCAT, in partnership with the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists 2026 and the FAO Committee on Forestry Working Group on Dryland Forests and Agrosilvopastoral Systems (COFO WG), is holding a summer school ​session ​to explore transformative approaches to building climate resilient dryland systems. FAO/IYRP dryland summer school 12-15 Sept 2023 in Jordan. WOCAT SLM expert Rima Mekdaschi Studer will be conducting the field say. 

FAO and UNCCD are jointly organizing a regional webinar on integrating land tenure into restoration initiatives from 15-17 May. These webinars aim to raise awareness on the value of tenure security and its contribution to biodiversity conservation, sustainable land management, ecosystem restoration, and climate change mitigation and adaptation while improving food security and local livelihoods. The first day will focus on Africa/Arab region, the second on Latin America/ Caribbean, and the third day on Central-East Europe/ Asia/ Pacific.

The 2nd seminar organised by GEO LDN took place on April 25. It was focusing on "National Approaches to Mapping Land Degradat. The speakers, including WOCAT SLM and LDN expert Ingrid Teich, shared their experiences on participatory processes to improve maps of land degradation and estimations of SDG indicator 15.3.

The seminar was recorded and can be watched here.

End of April, WOCAT joined the International Conference on the Social, Economic and Institutional Aspects of Land and Ecosystem Restoration at the Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, organized by the UNCCD G20 Land Initiative. Researchers, government, non-government and private sector actors gathered to draw recommendations on land restoration.

ISRIC, GIZ and CDE (consortium partners of WOCAT) co-organised a workshop on WOCAT Land Degradation and SLM Mapping Tools and Approaches. The participants practiced hands-on mapping land degradation and SLM using Google Earth Engine, got to know digital soil organic carbon mapping with machine learning and familiarised with mobile phone technology for SLM LandPKS.

WOCAT and FAO set up a survey to gather information from different actors working in the field of SLM and land restoration about their expertise and interest in South-South knowledge exchange. A Portuguese version of the survey is open until 31 May 2023 and all partners form Lusophone countries are kindly invited to fill out the survey.