With regenerative grazing management, that is, the right management of livestock and wildlife for the right context, land degradation can be reversed, leading not only to a rapid regain of ecoystem function but to greater revenue for the women, men and youth drawing their livelihoods from these landscapes. This paper explores agroforestry, regenerative grazing management and silvopastoral systems and was produced in collaboration with CIFOR, World Agroforestry, Regreening Africa, Soil 4 Climate, Savory, Grassroots Trust, ILRI, Global EverGreening Alliance, green up to cool down, ICARDA, Alliance Biodiversity & CIAT, CGIAR and SHARED ahead of the COP 27 2022.

This white paper provides useful background for the GLF Climate Digital Conference: A turning point for drought management: Upscaling the silvopastoral approach in the Near East North Africa (NENA) region. This session will explore the question: What needs to be done and - who needs to do it - to implement integrated drought management through silvopastoral systems to ensure countries in the NENA region are better prepared for drought? Using examples from the NENA region, speakers and panellists will highlight the benefits of drought management through silvopastoral systems, present evidence of how they have been used effectively, and discuss how to upscale these practices further.

The Grazing with trees policy brief accompanies the Grazing with Trees publication, giving an overview of the positive role that optimized extensive grazing livestock farming can play in the management and restoration of drylands’ forests and lands. Trees in dryland forests and wooded areas provide key ecosystem services such as animal feed, timber, fruits and, regulation of soil and water cycles. Equally, the presence of livestock in dryland woody areas can also play an important role in the local ecosystem; not only are they a source of income for local communities, but they also help vegetation and mobilise stored biomass. When both of these ecosystem elements are wisely combined – livestock and trees – it creates an integrated agricultural system that can boost the local ecosystem, representing a welcome agro-ecological transition.

The ‘Grazing with Trees’ report gives a thorough assessment of the positive role that optimized extensive grazing livestock farming can play in the management and restoration of drylands’ forests and lands with trees. It assesses and provides sound evidence on the benefits of applying an integrated landscape approach and utilizing farmers and pastoralists’ knowledge to halt desertification, increase resilience, and enhance food security under the actual changing scenario. The report confirms the importance of agroforestry as a primary pathway for forest restoration in dryland areas as recommended by FAO’s State of Forests 2022, and its recommendations encourage landscape planners and decision makers to consider livestock as allies, carefully restore tree cover and accelerate action to promote healthy ecosystems.

The Humanitarian-Development-Peace nexus recognizes conflict as a threat multiplier to climate change and seeks to integrate conflict sensitivity into policies and actions around natural resources. Competition for natural resources in dryland areas often leads to conflict between host communities and displaced people. The Doing No Harm While Doing Good:  Climate and Conflict Sensitivity in Dryland Humanitarian Projects policy brief evidences this fragility of ecosystems in humanitarian settings through a thorough review of three innovative projects implemented by FAO, CGIAR and CARE, consultations with Think Tank organizations in Africa and Middle East and practitioners on the ground. It argues that humanitarian interventions should both address and redress the environmental impact of displaced populations and protection of dryland natural resources must be seen as a vital part of programme implementation and aims to provide decision makers with potential ways in which the Humanitarian, Development and Peace Nexus can be implemented in relief activities in dryland ecologically fragile environments.

The study "Valuing, restoring and managing presumed drylands: Cerrado, Miombo–Mopane woodlands and the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau" confirms the existence of 1 075 million hectares of presumed drylands that are under threat from unsustainable use and climate change. This is in addition to the 6.1 billion hectares of official drylands that already cover 41 percent of the planet’s land surface and are home to 2 billion people. All these areas contain high levels of biodiversity and are home to a large number of people reliant on agriculture to sustain their livelihoods, this is why it's so important to research, analyse and work to protect them. The report contains concrete information on the environmental and ecological value of these dryland areas, and key recommendations for actions to limit land degradation, sustain biodiversity and mitigate climate change.

The FAO-CARE- CGIAR joint technical working paper will contribute to developing an FAO position and improved understanding of the links between, and risks of, climate change and various kinds of conflict as related to FAO’s mandate, with particular attention to crisis contexts in dryland forests and agrosilvopastoral areas. More broadly, this will feed into UN system-level discussion and processes related to the multidimensional nature of Climate Security. The working paper will unpack how combined climate shocks, environmental degradation, and conflict exacerbate people’s vulnerability and reflect how responses should adapt to tackle these compounding challenges and bolster resilience. The joint study will gather and analyse examples of strategies and interventions that help communities identify and mitigate combined climate, environmental and conflict risks. The paper will then draw lessons learned and recommendations for design and implement projects that support people in achieving long term food security or in building up their ability to cope with multiple shocks, including those of climate change and conflict.

With climate change impacts already felt in the world’s drylands, there is an urgent need for action, at various scales and initiated by different stakeholders, to ensure the sustainability of food production and livelihoods in these regions in the coming decades. There is also the need to rapidly establish baselines, assess and start monitoring progress on sustainability, emerging as result of the action taken. To aid in this effort, this paper provides a short list of expected transformations (under each of the three sustainability pillars) for guiding the planning and implementation of policy, governance and practice-level actions. Gender and indigenous people’s rights and knowledge will be considered cross-cutting issues. The expected transformations will be shared with and agreed by dryland experts and practitioners and will be complemented with additional relevant information sources and indicators.

This policy brief is intended to inform decision-makers of nine transformational actions to sustain dryland production systems under the impact of climate change. It highlights the relevance of the local context for interventions and the importance of traditional and tested adaptive agrosilvopastoral strategies for building resilience. In addition, it emphasizes the potential for scaling up and using complementary technologies over wider areas. In particular, the roles of both women and men should not be neglected in terms of maintaining, creating and restoring dryland sustainable landscape.

Drylands cover 41 percent of the Earth's land surface. This publication presents the results of the first global assessment of trees, forests and land use in these lands. The assessment breaks new methodological ground: it relies on the visual interpretation of freely available satellite images, carried out by more than 200 experts in a series of regional workshops. Using a tool called Open Foris Collect Earth, developed by FAO in collaboration with Google, participants gathered and analysed information for more than 200 000 sample plots worldwide. For each region, the report summarizes the distribution of forests, other wooded land and other land uses including grasslands, croplands, built-up areas and barren land, across all drylands and by aridity zone. It also estimates tree canopy cover, shrub cover, forest type and presence of trees outside forest. Indicating that the global drylands contain more than one-quarter of the world's forest area, and that trees are present on 31 percent of the world's dryland area, the report provides a baseline for future monitoring and will support countries in their efforts to identify appropriate investments for the restoration and sustainable management of drylands.