Peter Holmgren is the Director General of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). He spoke on the sidelines of the Global Landscapes Forum about the landscapes approach, what it means for the global climate agenda, and what’s coming up next for the GLF.

How does the Global Landscapes Forum relate to climate change?

Very much so because the climate solutions that we’re looking for, many of them will have to happen in  the landscape. Dealing, for example, with the food systems or reducing deforestation; restoring degraded lands. Many of these benefits will have to happen in landscapes. And by doing this right, and by meeting all those other values in the landscapes, we can come to a situation where the climate benefits are actually co-benefits of sustainable landscapes.

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What’s the connection to COP22?

I think the COP negotiations are going well, under the circumstances. It is a big job to get the Paris Agreement into implementation and into action. I think that the Global Landscapes Forum provides one avenue where we can reach some of the ambitions that are expressed in the Paris Agreement.

What’s next for GLF?

We want to launch the new phase of the Global Landscapes Forum, where we will scale up and reach out, and in the next five years we hope to reach a billion people to be engaged and learn from the landscape approaches, to figure out solutions that are good for them in their landscapes.

How can we reach a billion?

The main part is to be serious about having the stakeholders in landscapes engaged on their own terms, with their own priorities. And try to avoid having an expert top-down approach, as we are trying to scale up the landscape approach.

*This is part of a series of interviews from the 2016 Global Landscapes Forum: Climate Action for Sustainable Development in Marrakesh, Morocco

This article is one of CIFOR’s Highlights of 2016 Putting Landscapes and Forests First Read more