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GROUNDING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT— SCALING UP LAND RESTORATION

CAUX DIALOGUEon LAND and SECURITY

Caux, Switzerland 11 – 14 July 2015

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

LIFE ON LANDSDG #15

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Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, United Kingdom Climate & Energy Security Envoy, 2009 – 13

'...the reality is that there is an increasing recognition amongst the security community that environmental risks pose a threat to national security as much as they do to human security, and therefore must be refl ected in their strategic analysis.'

Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary, UNCCD, 2007 – 13; former Minister for the Environment, Benin

'The Sahara desert and the Mediterranean sea are becoming the cemetery of the hope of many African youth. Migration is another reason why Europe should care about climate change and desertifi cation threatening people’s livelihoods.'

Louise Baker, External Relations, Policy and Advocacy Coordinator, UNCCD

'At UNCCD we are working on … land degradation neutrality. This means trying to stop further degradation and massively scaling up the rehabilitation of land around the world. We’re doing that because … confl icts over natural resources, forced migration pressures, will gather pace.'

The 2015 Caux Dialogue on Land and Security (CDLS 2015) was organised by Initiatives for Land, Lives and Peace, in collaboration with the UN Convention to Combat Desertifi cation (UNCCD) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

2015 will be seen as one of the most important years yet in international governance, with two global processess to agree on a sustainable trajectory for the future coming to their climax. In September in New York, governments agreed on the newly proposed UN Sustainable Development Goals, while in December in Paris at the United Nations climate change summit (UNFCCC COP21), countries will seek a binding climate agreement to limit global greenhouse gas emissions. Both international summits have Sustainable Development at their heart, and share the idea that combating poverty and climate change must be dealt with together. This coincides with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO)

Global context

Participants' comments: +++ It was fantastic and a learning dialogue. I have learnt a lot from this. +++

Saturday, July 11

Practical examples of new approaches to land, natural resources management and peacebuilding, which could be scaled up.

Sunday, July 12

Food, Trade, Land and Water: In the face of global change, how can we ensure food is traded in a system that incentivises farmers to manage land and water sustainably on behalf of us all?

Monday, July 13

Building trust for collaboration — a precondition for scaling up land restoration. What can be achieved in strengthening relationships essential for governance and peace-building?

International Year of Soils, making land degradation one of the most important issues of the 21st century. In 2011, Luc Gnacadja, then UNCCD Executive Secretary said, in proposing the Caux Dialogues on Land and Security, “only six to ten inches of top soil separate mankind from extinction”.

While the international political frameworks are fi nally recognising the opportunities in the land-security nexus, the CDLS 2015 focussed on the further step of identifying opportunities and drivers for restoring land and delivering change at scale.

Under the theme “Grounding Sustainable Development”, the 2015 Caux Dialogue set out to help clarify the conditions needed for scaling up successes across the world. CDLS 2015 took place just as the number of refugees and migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa — risking their lives to arrive in Europe seeking security, safety and economic opportunities — increased.

Global context

Guillaume Benoit, President of the French Water Partnership's group on water and food security, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, France

'We now need to bring about change on a much larger scale. I propose to emphasise three points that my country is very attached to: family farming and policies that favour it; agro-ecology; and the vital reconciliation between food security and the fi ght against climate change.'

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Left: 'Fireside conversa-tion': Young participants interact with leading environmentalists. Right (l–r): Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor of the Daily Telegraph, UK; Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Director General, IUCN from 2007–2015; Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary, UNCCD, 2007–13.

Land restoration and sustainable land management play a central role in food security, water security, economic growth through employment, and carbon sequestration. The fi rst day of CDLS 2015 was awash with examples of successful projects from around the world of how land can be restored, cheaply, quickly and to the great benefi t of rural communities, especially when the human factors of mistrust and governance are also addressed. When practitioners were asked about the key requirements for scaling up their successes, the response was remarkably simple and consistent: community engagement and empowerment.

Workshops during CDLS 2015 also demonstrated that restoring land falls within no one specifi c approach, whether traditional, modern, or scientifi c. Neither does land restoration require exclusively top-down or bottom-up drivers. It was clear that there is no single magic bullet that would be applicable in all contexts at all times. Rather, the workshops demonstrated the importance of, and scope for, breaking down silos, for mutual respect and collaboration. Creating a joint vision with all stakeholders encourages each school of thought, specialisation and hierarchy to contribute their best to a solution. Moreover, sharing lessons across communities and borders is an extremely effective means to scaling up land restoration, allowing farmers to adopt the most suitable technologies and methods to their specifi c contexts.

Case studies and successes

July 11 panel (seated, left to right): Gabriel Lagat, George Kiiru, Niguse Hagazi, Tony Rinaudo, Michael Ben Eli. Standing: Luc Gnacadja.

Participants' comments: +++ The ‘fireside conversation’ with the young people was insightful as well as delightful. +++

Youssif El Tayeb, Executive Director, Darfur Development and Reconstruction Agency, Sudan

‘We need deep rooted local mechanisms of confl ict resolution and peace ...

promoting strong community awareness, to give communities the confi dence to speak for themselves.’

Initiatives fair

‘First is the dryland ecosystem restoration, but the other... is the impact on the community and the people who are involved, and who have grown very much like those trees, and like those fl owers, and like all the life coming back to that place.’ — Michael Ben Eli, Founder, The Sustainability Laboratory, USA, an NGO active in desert restoration

‘We found the solution was literally under our feet. When you cut a tree, at least 50% of it is still alive underground. In that barren landscape there was a vast underground forest waiting to grow, but we kept it back by fi re, cutting and grazing.’ — Tony Rinaudo, Natural resources adviser, World Vision, Australia

‘My vision for the future is to expand the forestry cover in my area through community initiatives such as schools and community centres.’ — George Kiiru, farmer, Kenya

Case studies and successes

Gabriel Lagat, Deputy Governor, Elgeyo Marakwet County, Kenya

‘Yes, there are resource constraints. But the biggest driver is the demand for a development approach that the people have

actually brought into. Our lesson has been the power of community engagement and of using established community structures.’

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Farmers everywhere play a key role in long-term sustainable land and water management practices.

CDLS 2015 dedicated one day to reviewing the current relationship between farmers, particularly in Africa, and the global trade frameworks within which they operate.

FAO estimates that the global demand for food will more than double between 1990 and 2100. By 2100 Africa — including North Africa — will need to access food for 4.3 billion. By 2100 its population could exceed the 4.1 billion in Asia. Africa will not be able to feed the populations of other continents. It may always be a net-food importer.

There is a growing awareness of the need to ensure that farmers are adequately rewarded for their unique contribution to the environment. How can we ensure food is traded in a system that incentivises farmers to manage land and water sustainably on behalf of us all?

The CDLS 2015 offered the opportunity to showcase and discuss innovative solutions in agricultural technologies, value chain development, sources and mechanisms for fi nancing, as well as land tenure agreements.

The global food trade discussions also highlighted the growing physical and “relational distance” between food producers and consumers; the managers of our natural resource and the benefi ciaries.

One widely supported conclusion was the importance of supporting farmer’s organisations and cooperatives, thereby greatly increasing farmers’ power in the market place, enabling them to add value to their own products, and enhancing their resilience. This was felt to be more sustainable than price support for their products. This is already government policy in Morocco, France and Kenya.

Food, farmers and trade

Participants' comments: +++ Such an interesting mix of ideas and people… I was blown away by the Caux magic and will defi nitely try and return next year. +++

Dominic Waughray, Senior Director, Head of Environmental Initiatives, World Economic Forum, Switzerland

‘Imagine a Global Water Court in 2030, working with an African government to construct the right to a parcel of land which is well watered, perhaps with a 99 year lease. That Court, with the expertise to ensure that the farmers would still be working on that land, would attract the investment to grow the crops for that lease period, manage everything to do with social protection, and would award that lease to a particular client…..'

‘Grazing management needs to be improved. Population pressure is another problem. But the most important thing is the way we approach farmers.’ — Niguse Hagazi, World Agro-forestry Centre, Ethiopia

‘There is enough law. The problem is weak enforcement.’ — Muhammad Swazuri, Chair of the Land Commission, Kenya

Tony Colman, farmer and former British Member of Parliament

'Farmers of the world must unite. We are weak individually, but together we can be strong.'

Food, farmers and trade

Tony Allan, Emeritus Professor, Department of Geography, King’s College, London; Winner of the Stockholm Water Prize in 2008

'...We are living a contradiction. We are addicted to cheap food. But we do not realise that asking farmers to produce under-priced food means they cannot provide the ecosystem services which we also need them to provide. If low food prices make it impossible for farmers to attend to the environment … we must help change the debate and put messages out there so that politicians can stand up and say what we need to do is price food properly.'

Panellists: Martin Keulertz, Research Fellow, Environmental Governance Research, Humboldt University, Berlin; Philippe Rohner, Senior Investment Manager, Pictet Asset Management, Switzerland.

‘Unless government enga-ges with the private sector to bring change, we cannot make change sustainable.’ — John Schluter, international coffee trader.

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‘It is important not just to react when crises occur, but to think through the issues and structures beforehand’ — Jeremy Ive, Church of England Pastor; confl ict resolution expert

Daphrose Ntarataze, President, Creators of Peace, Burundi

‘There is a whole generation of young people who are broken. We need to stop the cycle now before it injures future generations … to hear our memories and address the past together.’

‘What is the relational problem behind the problem? Enabling space to argue is an antidote to violent confl ict. It is part of the process of working on a relationship’ — Brendan Bromwich, environmental peace-building practitioner and researcher, Sudan

The relationship between land and environmental degradation due to poor or failing governance systems and confl ict has been established at previous Caux Dialogues. Conversely numerous case-studies have also demonstrated that scaling up land restoration takes collaboration, which in turn requires trust, between individuals, groups and communities. Land restoration offers a non-political avenue for bringing together diverse

Restoring relationships to restore land

Participants' comments: +++ I greatly enjoyed my brief Caux stay and keep on thinking of all that could be done in that magical place. +++

Michael Schluter, Chairman & CEO, Relational Research, Cambridge, UK

'Any environmental issue involves looking at who the stakeholders are and what are the relationships among them. If you don’t deal with the relationship problem at the root, then you will fail in the end.

'What is the key to building trust? .... There are fi ve drivers. The fi rst of these is communication. The second is time. Every relationship has a past, a present and an expected future. They all have an impact on how we conduct relationships. The third is information - the breadth and depth of the information about the other party is critical to how you understand them. The fourth is how power is used. How much is there a participation in decisions? How much is there a sharing of risk and reward? The fi fth is about whether people have a sense of sharing a purpose, and share their goals and values.”

Joseph Montville, Director, Program on Healing Historical Memory, School for Confl ict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Washington DC, USA

'One of the great advantages for different groups who have a history of loss is that by working collaboratively on land, water, and food projects that have clear material benefi ts for all the people, including their children, they have a real incentive to succeed, psychologically, spiritually, and fi nancially…. Acknowledgement by aggressors of countries which feel victimised can transform international relationships’

‘Even though we have different beliefs, we live in the same community and we must live by sharing sincerity and rightness’ — Bitrus Dangiwa, Nigerian pastor engaged in interfaith mediation

Participants were treated to the world première of “Ethiopia Rising”, a powerful new fi lm by Mark Dodd about land restoration in Abrha Weatsbha, Ethiopia.

Restoring relationships to restore land

communities to strengthen relationships for peace and develop suitable governance mechanisms for their shared environment.

What can be achieved in strengthening relationships essential for governance and peace-building? Land restoration in the context of a present confl ict or post-confl ict region requires delicate negotiation and the space and time for forgiveness

to heal broken relationships and communities. When so combined, land restoration and trust-building interventions offer proactive approach to long-term sustainable peace. Global interventions to address security, development or environmental issues thus need to move away from silo-based thinking to collaborate and innovate for appropriate solutions to these interlinked challenges.

Book Pre-launch: Land Restoration — Reclaiming Landscapes for a Sustainable Future

Land Restoration: Reclaiming Landscapes for a Sustainable Future addresses solutions to land restoration and related topics, such as human security, development, and water and air pollution. This compilation of current research provides a holistic overview of land degradation and restoration from the scientifi c and practical development points of view.

Land Restoration: Reclaiming Landscapes for a Sustainable Future brings together practitioners from NGOs, academia, governments, and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertifi cation (UNCCD), most of whom have participated in the Caux Dialogue on Land and Security, to exchange lessons to enrich the academic understanding of these issues and the solution sets available.

Commissioned by Elsevier Science and Technology Publishing, and edited by three members of the Initiatives for Land Lives and Peace Steering Group:

Ilan Chabay, Institute of Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, Germany; Martin Frick, Chair of Initiatives for Land Lives and Peace, and Jennifer Helgeson, Applied Economics Offi ce of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

KEY FEATURES

• Provides information about the science, policy, and social issues behind land degradation and restoration in a form accessible to all, including those who are not specialists in the topics, allowing full access to the issues at hand• Includes practical on- the- ground examples garnered from diverse areas, such as the Sahel, Southeast Asia, and the U.S.A.• Provides practical tools for designing and implementing restoration/re- greening processes.

To order the book, go to www.landlivespeace.org.

North Rift Dialogue on Land and Security, Eldoret, Kenya in April 2016

The Caux Dialogue benefi ts from an extremely diverse community of participants. Of these, participants from Kenya have made signifi cant contributions to the Dialogues over the last three years. Notable among these were a delegation from Baringo County, led by Deputy Governor H.E. Mathew Tuitoek; a delegation from Elgeyo Marakwet County, led by Deputy Governor H.E. Gabriel Lagat; Dr Muhammad Swazuri, Chair of the National Land Commission; Simon Thuo, Policy and Strategy Advisor, Social Impact Institute, Kenya, and Matthew Kyalo, Africa Sand Dam Foundation.

Impressed by the ILLP approach during CDLS 2015, Dr Lagat — Deputy Governor of Elgeyo Marakwet County — made a request, with full support from the Kenyan delegation, that a Dialogue on Land and Security be held in north west Kenya. Eight counties in this semi-arid region — Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet, Nandi, Samburu, Trans Nzoia, Turkana, Uasin Gishu and West Pokot — have formed an alliance to address common socio-economic challenges. As the Chair of the Technical Committee within this alliance, Lagat is keen to adopt the ILLP approach in responding to the region’s natural resource management and confl ict issues. This has since been reinforced by a letter from Mathew Tuitoek which says: 'After our successful conference in Caux, Switzerland, we are proposing to hold a Dialogue on Land and Security in Kenya in April 2016. We wish to invite the organizers of the Caux Dialogue on Land and Security to join us in co-hosting such an important event for a variety of stakeholders and especially the North Rift region. Land and security are critical issues for us. We believe the spirit of trust and dialogue promoted by the Initiatives of Change is an important element to bring long-term solutions.' — H.E. Eng. Mathew K. Tuitoek, Deputy Governor, Baringo County.

Outcomes and next steps

Participants' comments: +++ I feel energised, with renewed faith in humanity. +++

ILLP is pleased to confi rm a partnership with Deputy Governor Tuitoek, Deputy Governor Lagat, and others in delivering a North Rift Dialogue on Land and Security in April 2016. More details will be available on www.landlivespeace.org.

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Standing (l–r): Janet Jeruto, Grace Wambui Mwangi, Kipng'etich Barmaasai, Meera Shah, Alan Channer. Sitting (l–r): Kiprono Kemboi, Muhammad Swazuri, Simon Thuo, Gabriel Lagat, Joseph Karanja.

Ilan Chabay

Outcomes and next steps

Since the end of World War II, the Caux conference centre (www.caux.ch) at Caux, Switzerland, has belonged to the Caux Initiatives of Change Foundation. It has a proud heritage, reconciling war-time enemies, helping to achieve independence from colonial rule without bloodshed, building trust within industries and between divided communities. In the last seven years, through its focus on human security, Caux has become known for its holistic approach to development, peace and environmental issues, and as a humanitarian meeting place of people from many backgrounds and disciplines, where trust and mutual understanding fl ourish.

Initiatives for Land, Lives and Peace (ILLP), which co-organises the Caux Dialogue on Land and Security with UNCCD and IUCN, is a programme of Initiatives of Change International, whose mission is to inspire, connect and equip people to address world needs, starting with themselves (www.iofc.org). ILLP’s website is at www.landlivespeace.org and its twitter handle is @cauxdialogue.

CAUX DIALOGUEon LAND and SECURITY

www.landlivespeace.org@cauxdialogue

Photo credits: Caux — Initiatives of Change and Initiatives for Land, Lives and Peace: Julian Theseira, James Nikitine.

(Except cover: Large picture – Terracing in Kenya © H. Liniger PROFO 2009 (Flickr Creative Commons). Small pictures from top and left to right – Girl behind NATO wire © S. Modola/IRIN; Armed confl ict © M. Perret/UN; Syrian village Treimsa in Hama province © AFP Photo D. Leal Olivas 2012; AUSAID Africa Food Security 18 Uganda © K. Holt/AfricaPractice 2009; Indonesia © DFATD-MAECD/B. Aquin 2013; Smallholder farmers © CGIAR 2013; CGIAR, ClimateSmart Villages in SouthAsia (India) © V. Reddy (ViDocs) 2013; Rice terracing Annapurna Nepal © E. Montfort 2008 (all these, except the fi rst two small ones, from Flickr Creative Commons). – Ornament ribbon shows detail from Caux chateau ceiling, photo © H. Liniger 2014. – SDGs materials from http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/news/communications-material/.)

Design: Annette Gütgemann.

Realising the potential of land restoration

2016 29 June – 3 July