Community-led initiatives in Africa, Asia and Latin America are set to join the Global Landscapes Forum chapters network, aiming to enhance their impact.
Bonn, Germany (15 February 2023) – This week, ten initiatives at the forefront of landscape transformation and community strengthening debut within the GLFx network of the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF). The African organizations represent the initial entrants from their respective countries into the network. This also marks the premiere appearance of two Indigenous-led Latin American organizations and one from the Caribbean as GLFx chapters.
GLFx is a network of locally rooted organizations transforming landscapes from the ground up and paving the way for policy change in favour of landscapes and people. It will help connect these six new community-oriented chapters with organizations and partners worldwide and offer access to learning, visibility and funding opportunities to bolster their landscape management, governance and restoration activities, scaling their impact.
Meet the new GLFx chapters:
The GLFx Zàg Xokleng chapter is led by the Zág Institute, an organization formed by young people from the Xokleng Indigenous people. From its community nurseries in Doutor Pedrinho, Santa Catarina state, Brazil, the organization focuses on the propagation and recovery of Araucaria angustifolia forests, a tree species known as “zág” by the Xokleng and threatened by commercial logging. Around this species, the chapter organizes actions to value ancestral traditions through educational activities and film screenings.
The GLFx Kivu chapter focuses on the development of rural women, tree planting and restoration, solar energy implementation and the enhancement of cookstove efficiency. It works with women and girls in the South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they have established four cooperatives of women farmers, planted 2,000 trees and distributed 2,500 improved cookstoves to reduce charcoal demand. Spearheaded by the organization Women Concern, the chapter works through cooperatives and implements the Healthy Village model, which encompasses projects aimed at education, health care and nutritious livelihoods.
The GLFx Carriacou chapter will strengthen restoration projects in mangroves and other wetlands and develop disaster risk management activities in the Hillsborough and Lauriston Point communities on the island of Carriacou, Grenada. The intergenerational team of the Kipaji Development Initiative, the organization that leads the chapter, innovates in monitoring terrestrial and marine areas using drones and contributes to dialogue on local marine protection policies. It aims to promote knowledge about marine ecosystem management and climate resilience and to become a reference center for coastal landscapes.
The GLFx Java chapter aims to transform socioecological systems for sustainable and equitable natural resource management. Through a landscape approach, knowledge creation, evidence-based programs and research to support natural resource policy advocacy, they have engaged youth, smallholders and women from approximately 100 communities in West Java, Indonesia. The chapter, led by Patera Foundation, prioritizes sustainable landscape management, training for smallholders, climate-smart agroforestry and youth capacity-building and mobilization. Their goal is to boost resilience to environmental challenges among urban, rural and indigenous populations.
The GLFx Pichis-Pachitea chapter, led by the indigenous organization Bari Wesna, operates in the Huanuco and Ucayali regions in the central Amazon of Peru. It focuses on natural resource governance, landscape restoration, and agroforestry, emphasizing interculturality and ancestral values. It works with both mestizo communities and the Shipibo-Konibo and Ashaninka Indigenous peoples. The aim is to contribute to the social development of the Peruvian jungle from the cosmovision of Amazonian peoples and to foster institutional connections to inform policies favorable to nature.
The GLFx Nyanza chapter, led by the Dufatanye Organization in Nyanza, Southern Province of Rwanda, aims to alleviate poverty for over 2,100 people. The chapter implements agricultural, health and education programs in six communities and, through its Village of Hope program, it provides families with fruit trees, fodder trees, organic fertilizers and hens. This is complemented with household finance, health care, agroforestry and kitchen gardening training.
The GLFx Kenema chapter’s activities revolve around environmental education and curriculum development, school gardens and volunteer programs within the Kenema district, Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. This youth-led chapter, hosted by SL Environmental Matters, offers a training program for local teachers to incorporate restoration concepts into school curriculums, organizes tree planting campaigns with children and seeks to establish a community eco-tourism program.
The GLFx Massai Steppe chapter collaborates with the Indigenous Massai community in the Simanjiro district, Manyara Region, Tanzania. Led by the Tanzania Conservation and Community Empowerment Initiative (TACCEI), it prioritizes community-led conservation, sustainable agriculture as a viable business and the mitigation of gender-based violence. For instance, it will train 150 women in kitchen gardening and 200 in entrepreneurship. It also centers on wildlife research, especially regarding human-carnivore wildlife conflicts.
The GLFx Virunga chapter, under the leadership of the Adventure Learning and Community Development Initiative (ALCDI), operates within the biodiversity-rich Virunga, and focuses on food forests, rural restoration and eco-tourism. It will work with 1500 farmers from the Kiguezi sub-region, in Greater Virunga Range, Uganda, aiming to engage more to reach 100,000 food forest creators and ambassadors by 2030 through its training-of-trainers approach and sustainability strategy.
The GLFx Harare chapter concentrates on rural food production cycles, seed banking, entrepreneurship and responsible mining in the Mutare District of Zimbabwe. Led by the Rima Africa Trust in partnership with the Tariro Foundation of Zimbabwe Trust and the Centre for Natural Resources Governance, this chapter works with youth, women and persons with disabilities, and together they have established 300 community gardens and a seed bank comprising 80 indigenous species.
GLFx is supported by the German entities Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMU), the International Climate Initiative (IKI) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), as well as the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Lavazza Foundation.
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NOTE TO EDITORS
For more information, photos and/or to arrange interviews, contact Kelly Quintero (k.quintero@cifor-icraf.org).
About GLFx
GLFx is a network of independently organized, community-oriented and grassroots initiatives transforming their landscapes from the ground up and advocating for policy change. GLFx is designed to accelerate local action toward global landscape restoration by connecting members with the knowledge, tools and networks necessary to achieve lasting and holistic change. Learn more at globallandscapesforum.org/glfx-showcase/.
About the GLF
The Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) is the world’s largest knowledge-led platform on integrated land use, connecting people with a shared vision to create productive, profitable, equitable & resilient landscapes. It is led by the Center for International Forestry Research-World Agroforestry Centre (CIFOR-ICRAF), in collaboration with its co-founders UNEP and the World Bank, and its charter members. Learn more at www.globallandscapesforum.org.
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