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FAO has launched a new e-learning course that will inspire practitioners to champion transformational dryland forest management strategies, spearheaded by the Committee on Forestry’s Working Group on Dryland Forests and Agrosilvopastoral Systems (COFO WG). 

The Transforming Dryland Forests and Agrosilvopastoral Systems: An approach to sustaining and developing food production in drylands under change course was developed through the joint efforts and expertise of the COFO WG and 15 partners, the largest collaboration to date on any FAO Academy course. It is the now available free on the FAO Learning Academy platform and is the platform’s first course focusing on drylands. It targets programme and project managers, field practitioners, policy makers and anyone interested in sustainable development of drylands.

Through five online lessons, the course will build the competencies needed to transform the way practitioners manage dryland forests, with a focus on increasing sustainability whilst retaining the benefits of other interventions. The course takes around five hours to complete and after a final test, participants will be awarded a certificate.

Urgent transformation is needed

The impact of climate change is already being felt in the world’s drylands, which are home to over two billion people, and a business-as-usual approach is no longer an option for a food-secure future. There is an urgent need for a transformation in land and natural resource management through innovative community-led strategies that adapt to water scarcity and decreasing soil productivity. The e-learning course focuses on agrosilvopastoral systems as a solution, which utilise both dryland trees and livestock in a mutually beneficial system. When correctly implemented, agrosilvopastoral systems can ensure the sustainability of food production and livelihoods in these regions, whilst alleviating poverty and reducing the risk of conflict and disasters.

Dryland communities need champions to support this wave of transformation; but there is a huge gap between awareness and capacity to implement sustainable dryland management interventions. The e-learning course was created to address this shortfall. It builds on the sustainable approaches to dryland management discussed in FAO’s 2021 publication Building climate-resilient dryland forests and agrosilvopastoral production systems: An approach for context-dependent economic, social, and environmentally sustainable transformations. The e-learning course will focus on key areas of drylands sustainable dryland management, including achieving a synergy-focused decision-making process, implementing management systems that integrate both forest and rangeland management, and improving efficient goal setting and progress measurement.

“A business-as-usual approach is no longer an option for a food-secure future, but there is a huge gap between awareness and capacity to implement sustainable dryland management interventions,” said FAO Forestry Officer Fidaa F. Haddad. “This e-learning course focuses on agrosilvopastoral systems as a solution, utilising both dryland trees and livestock in a mutually beneficial system.”

High-level launch event

 The course was officially launched at a high-level event, opened by H.E Mr. Abasali Nobakht, Iran's Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Head of the Natural Resources and Watershed Management Organization. Many of the e-learning course’s partners joined the event to delve deeper into course topics, and the opportunity was also taken to launch the COFO WG’s first Dryland Summer School, whose curriculum will based on the e-learning course’s content.

The e-Learning programme is just one part of the COFO WG’s work to establish a comprehensive understanding of dryland forest and agrosilvopastoral systems and the people who depend on them, and promote good practices for their protection, sustainable management and restoration. The course was developed by COFO WG in partnership with the Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia, FOCALI - the Forest, Climate and Livelihood Research Network, Forest Rangelands and Watershed Organization of the Ministry of Jihad Agriculture, Global Environment Facility, Global Landscapes Forum, International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, International Livestock Research Institute, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Livestock Climate and Resilience Project, Swedish Forest Agency, Swedish University of Science and Agriculture, Universidad de la Guajira, Universite Mohammed V Rabat, University of Bern, WANA Institute and World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies.