The event is organized by Crowd2Map Tanzania and is happening 29 November from 12-13h30 CET. WOCAT and FAO Geospatial specialists, Ingrid Teich and César Luis Garcia will demonstrate how they map land degradation and share UNCCD recommended methodology as well as methodologies for participatory mapping of degradation from our Land Degradation Assessment in Drylands project. Youth mappers and more - join us!

On November 18th, the Global Environment Facility Dryland Sustainable Landscapes Impact Program (DSL IP) was presented during the COFO Working Group on Dryland Forests and Agrosilvopastoral Systems. The DSL IP is implemented in 11 countries, globally coordinated by FAO in collaboration with two executing partners, IUCN and WOCAT. If you are interested to know more, please subscribe to the newsletter here. 

Join us for the IFAD event at COP26 where practitioners discuss approaches that value diversity, local knowledge and experimentations and the key lessons for scaling them up and delivering to the last mile.

Among the Panelists: Nicole Harari, WOCAT Executive Team member

On 7 September 2021, the first Tools4LDN workshop took place with more than 45 experts representing various national and international institutions, as well as decision makers from the public sector. The participants discussed the importance of data validation and the possibilities to integrate national information and expert knowledge in Colombia´s assessment of land degradation.

A series of upcoming training sessions on different Tools for LDN are planned to include Trends.Earth, LandPKS and the WOCAT SLM data base..

Join us for the session Restoration of Grassland Ecosystems: Actions on theground as we explore the importance of grasslands and its role in achieving global sustainability. 

This week we will be presenting the book 'Making Sense of Research for Sustainable Land Management' co-published in 2017 by the Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern, Switzerland and the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ, Leipzig, Germany. We will share with you on social media our take-home messages. In short, the book is about scientific research which makes sense in the field. It proves  that sustainable intensification and management of our land use is possible if done right. It can serve purposes from raising yields to ensuring the transformation of degrading land into a productive natural resource sustaining livelihoods. 

This week it's rangeland week on our channels! Because of the high level of diversity and heterogeneity of rangelands, six rangeland use systems (RUS) were identified based on mobility, scale, boundaries and combination with crop and wildlife management. There can be an overlap between the different RUS but each requires specific interventions. Also, rangeland managers shift between different RUS according to seasons and emergency situations as an adaptation strategy to challenging conditions like droughts or conflicts. Shrublands, grasslands, and savannahs are components of rangelands used by pastoralists for extensive livestock production and are key to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. 

We stand with countries to help implement land-based solutions that are context and climate specific to achieve the four #COP26 goals : mitigate, adapt, finance and collaborate. We can help through data, tools, methods, knowledge sharing and synergies between partners and stakeholders to accelerate the protection and restoration of nature for the benefit of people and climate. We have hope in science and good practices to alleviate challenges and reach targets and build a climate resilient future for all. During COP26, watch out for our climate actions from all regions on our social media channels!

In September, UNDP South Africa and WOCAT signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate in the further development and promotion of the SLM Progress Calculator – a new tool developed under the UNDP-GEF5 Sustainable Land Management Project, titled Securing multiple ecosystems benefit through SLM in the productive, but degraded landscapes in South Africa. The SLM Progress Calculator aims to monitor the reduction or prevention of land degradation, improvement and out-scaling SLM measures and the creation of an enabling environment for SLM. It uses a participatory approach to evaluate progress supported by contextual evidence collected during the project. This collaboration will permit an open access SLM Progress Calculator to be upgraded and made globally more adaptable for different Land Degradation, SLM and biodiversity conservation interventions at different spatial scales. Furthermore, the collaboration will provide training on the use of the tool through the WOCAT network.

The new publication "Restoring Life to the Land – The Role of Sustainable Land Management in Ecosystem Restoration" prepared jointly by UNCCD Secretariat and WOCAT in the context of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration illustrates how SLM experience feeds directly into ecosystem restoration efforts, as well as ecosystem maintenance. It showcases field-tested good practices under each of the eight ecosystems from all over the world.

Watch out for our Thailand series on Twitter and Facebook. We will be sharing good practices addressing soil erosion as well as saline and sodic soils - main issues highlighted for Thailand in the DS-SLM project. We invite partners, WOCATeers and stakeholders to visit our channels for more information around how to make use of evidence to support mainstreaming and scaling-out SLM practices.