Rome - The experience of farmers who manage agricultural heritage can help achieve the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration's main goals: support and scale-up efforts to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems.

Aware of the importance of keeping our planet’s ecosystems alive and healthy, the Food and Agriculture Organization through the Secretariat of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) is organizing the virtual seminar Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems and Ecosystem Restoration, this 26 January 2021.

GIAHS site representatives from China, Japan, Peru, Morocco, Spain and Tanzania will share their experiences and challenges on the sustainable use of natural resources as well as the types and functions of their ecosystem services. They will also explore how GIAHS can contribute to the objectives of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

Tune-in to this global discussion to learn how specific agricultural practices used in GIAHS sites have established and maintained unique ecosystems for food security and the livelihoods of farmers.

Key information

Registration:http://bit.ly/35wXutP

When: Tuesday, 26 January 2021

Time: 13:00-14:40 (CET)

Website: Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems and Ecosystem Restoration

Simultaneous interpretation will be provided in English, Spanish and French.

About GIAHS

The Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) of the Food and Agriculture of the United Nations (FAO) are remarkable traditional agricultural systems that safeguard the livelihoods of small-scale family farmers who practice sustainable agriculture based on local and indigenous knowledge. GIAHS not only produce food, but these time-tested systems also conserve biodiversity, preserve cultural heritages and their centuries-old wisdom can provide important lessons in building back better for the planet and its people. Today, there are 62 designated GIAHS sites in 22 countries where local communities continue to inherit the sustainable approaches of traditional farming with a deep-rooted respect for nature and culture.

About the UN Decade

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development seeks to end poverty, conserve biodiversity, combat climate change and improve livelihoods for everyone, everywhere. These objectives encapsulated in 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are unlikely to be met unless ecosystem degradation is stopped and ecosystem restoration is undertaken at the immense scale of hundreds of millions of hectares globally. Currently, there is insufficient global awareness, political support and technical capacity in both the public and private sectors to promote many hundreds of thousands of ecosystem restoration initiatives worldwide that are needed to achieve restoration at such a scale. Not only would such initiatives for ecosystem restoration contribute to achieving the SDGs, but they would also yield considerable economic returns for a recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and lead to more social, economic and ecological resilience.