By Stefan Knights, originally published at UNEP
On Saturday 6th December, most of the fascinating and thought-provoking activities were happening outside of the venue. I attended the Global Landscapes Forum which runs from 6-7 December, 2014. The first Global Landscapes Forum was held in Warsaw, Poland.
The discussions at this forum focused on the linkages between land use sectors and climate change. As such, a number of organisations from across the global working in sectors such as forestry, agriculture, mountains and watershed management, land use planning and human development participated in the event.
The event was organized by CIFOR in partnership with UNEP and FAO and it attracted the attention of thousands of negotiators, policy makers, world leaders, researchers, civil society and business leaders as well as the media. Based on the discussions at the Forum, it is clear that there will be a push to create a platform for positioning landscapes in the draft Agreement in Lima which should be signed in Paris, France in 2015. Also, at this event I engaged with several youth and was particularly fascinated by work of the Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) network; further information about YPARD can be found online.
Another interesting event later in the afternoon was organized by the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature in downtown Lima at the famous Gran Hotel Bolivar. This was a very emotional and eye opening event with a clear message that our ecosystems – including trees, oceans, animals, mountains – have rights just as human beings have rights and that the world should not merely see and treat nature as property under the law. A number of civil society groups from Peru, including indigenous peoples, and international activists who were not accredited to participate in the COP attended the event and voiced their concerns about the impact of the oil industries on climate stability.
In the evening, I met with Amira Odeh Quinones, a member of the Caribbean Youth Environment Network, Amira has been formally recognized by her country, Puerto Rico, as a leading environmental activist and is well known for her project “No Mas Botellas (no more plastic bottles)”. Amira explained that the views and interests of Puerto Ricans are not reflected in the negotiations because her country is still a territory of the USA, the greatest contributor to climate change, and if her country had a government representative at COP he/she would not adopt or support the position of the USA. This is a reminder that the voices of people from colonies such as Gibraltar, Montserrat and New Caledonia may not be reflected at climate negotiations.
