Global Landscapes Forum
In 2013, a small group of organizations including the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Program and the Centre for International Forestry Research, created the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) as a platform for diverse sectors and disciplines to connect and collaborate on realizing climate agenda and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) efforts. The Forum recognizes that cross-sectoral, integrated approaches to our climate and development challenges are the best way forward, and multifunctional landscapes and land uses are at the heart of those challenges.
The GLF positions landscapes at the forefront of new international agreements on climate and sustainable development. The Forum is a living and constantly-growing entity, as it expands its global community of several hundred organizations and tens of thousands of people across the globe—including scientists, lawyers, bankers, indigenous and community leaders, farmers and foresters, NGO practitioners, journalists and policy makers—in agriculture, forestry and development, funding organizations, media and more.
GLF events bring thousands of people together, making it the largest, most influential event outside the UNFCCC COP. Forum participants benefit from joining the interactive process of seeking combined solutions to the complex challenges common to everyone on the planet.
The Forum is more than a series of events, though: it is a dynamic platform with which diverse stakeholders can collaborate to create a more sustainable world. The website highlights event outcomes, but also serves as an interactive space for exchange and mutual learning about the challenges facing our planet. GLF aims to facilitate cross-sectoral connecting, learning, sharing and acting.
Join our movement, and make the connections.
For information about the Global Landscapes Forum, please contact Global Landscapes Forum Coordinator Erika Piquero e.piquero@cgiar.org
What is a landscapes approach?
Farms, forests, water bodies and settlements are not isolated elements but part of a wider landscape in which all land uses are integrated. A landscapes approach entails viewing and managing multiple land uses in an integrated manner that embraces compromise, considering both the natural environment and the human systems that depend on it.
The landscapes approach allows stakeholders to identify policy options, investment opportunities and research priorities by:
- Integrating policies across sectors and understanding how land-use choices in one area affect other areas
- Negotiating competing demands for land uses in a given landscape
- Assessing all factors that affect land uses, whether at local, national, regional or global levels
- Recognizing changes in landscapes as migration, urbanization, external shocks, and production and consumption patterns shape decisions on land use
- Valuing the role of all the people in the landscape and studying how groups benefit differently from land uses
- Leveraging private and public capital for sustainable development in the landscape.
