Are you Portuguese speaking? Join us on 31 May from 9-10:30 am (GMT-3) for a joint webinar by FAO Brazil, the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change of Brazil and WOCAT. We will present the Global SLM Database, which was translated into Portuguese in 2022, and will discuss jointly how to expand global access to the SLM good practices and actions carried out in Portuguese-speaking countries around the globe.

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. 

The Water Harvesting Explorer (WHE) is a decision support tool developed with funding from the World Bank to explore the opportunities for small-scale rainwater harvesting and water storage in the landscapes of the Western Sahel. To find these potential intervention measures the tool is linked to the WOCAT global SLM database. On 8.5.2023 and in the framework of the ACReSAL (AGRO-CLIMATIC RESILIENCE IN SEMI-ARID LANDSCAPES) World Bank project in Nigeria, WOCAT held a webinar to introduce WOCAT, good practices documentation and how to populate the global SLM database with more and diverse RWH practices which serves as basis for informed decision making using the WHE tool.

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.

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.