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12.11.15

IIS will co-host a session at Global Landscapes Forum

The International Institute for Sustainability (IIS) will co-host a session at the Global Landscapes Forum, a main side event of COP-21   in Paris (France). With the theme “Scaling up restoration, bringing down poverty – an assessment of opportunities and risks, from the Amazon to Africa’s Mayombe Forest”, the directors Bernardo Strassburg and Agnieszka Latawiec will speak at the session scheduled for December 5th, at 17:15h (Paris time).

Their presentation will focus on large-scale restoration, sustainable intensification of cattle ranching, and the challenges and opportunities of this process. The world has currently two billion of hectares of deforested and degraded lands. “We must reverse this tendency. Some argues that conciliation of rural development and reforestation is not possible, but our studies prove otherwise”, says Agnieszka. According to Latawiec, it is necessary to invest in sustainable techniques to increase agricultural productivity and spare part of the area to reforestation projects. “During the planning, it is necessary to observe how the local economy works to better choose restoration areas, leaving the ones with high potential to agriculture and cattle ranching”, says. The results of this study were published in the beginning of the year at the scientific magazine Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

The session coorganized by IIS will also include speakers as Mrs. Izabella Teixeira, Environment Minister of Brazil, Mrs. Fátima Jardim, Environment Minister of Angola, and representatives of Agroicone (Brazil) and AUGEO (South Africa). The directos of IIS will also address the situation of the Atlantic Rainforest. “The Brazilian Atlantic Forest, with its 150 million hectares, is one of the most diverse biomes of the planet, and keeps 14% of its original cover. At IIS we are developing restoration models for this forest, through multi-criterial spatial priorization models with economic benefits to the local community”, says Strassburg.

The session will also discuss the most efficient large-scale reforestation strategies and the challenges and opportunities to expand restoration initiatives in Brazil and around the world.

“This discussion is an opportunity to strengthen IIS contributions to the sustainable development and the partnerships with national and international organisms”, affirms Strassburg.

The UNFCCC COP-21 is the major climate chance conference in the world, and will be held in Paris (France) from November 30th until December 11th. The event will gather representatives from 196 countries on the search for a general agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and global warming until 2100. For further information about GLF, access: http://www.landscapes.org/glf-2015.

IIS will broadcast the session at GLF on Twitter. Acess www.twitter.com/iis_rio.