‘It’s a very safe secure space, where people can discuss and bounce ideas with people they

would not normally meet.’ Ian Johnson Secretary General, The Club of Rome

‘The unique strength of Caux is that this place and atmosphere offer us the opportunity

to think about potential.’ Luc Gnacadja Executive Secretary, UNCCD

R E P O R T

Download presentations from: www.landlivespeace.org

Organized by Initiatives for Land, Lives and Peace and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification

Addressing the human connections between poverty, conflict and

environmental degradation.

S P O N S O R I N G P A R T N E R SO R G A N I Z E R S

L A N D, L I V E S, PEACE.

The 2013

CAUX DIALOGUELAND SECURITYon and

7-11 July – Caux, Switzerland

In b

rief

CAUX DIALOGUELAND SECURITYon and

The 2013 Caux Dialogue on Land and Security was attended by over 200 people from all continents – representing government, business and civil society – to explore the potential of sustainable land management as a driver of peace, development and climate change mitigation.The event promoted a holistic approach to poverty, conflict and environmental degradation.OP

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Now is the time to learn from our mistakes and set ourselves on a path to a better future. The unique strength of Caux is that this place and atmosphere offer us the opportunity to think about potential……We need a vision for what is possible in a land degradation neutral world. If we manage the land well, we can limit resource based conflict, mitigate against and adapt to climate change, protect biodiversity and produce more food and energy sustainably. We can secure our water resources.

Luc Gnacadja. Executive Secretary, UNCCD, and event co-convenor.

We are here to explore the idea of land and security. To my mind, the two cannot be separated. The sustainable management of land is a prerequisite for the security of mankind now and in the future. It is an idea whose time has come.

‘If we manage the land well, we can limit resource-based conflict’

Rattan Lal Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science; Director, Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, The Ohio State University, USA.

As a world-leading expert on soils, Rattan Lal established the need for a holistic view of the topic, as land and its management is about the most basic prerequisite for any human culture. His

groundbreaking presentation demonstrated how soil will be central in any sustainable future:

The choices we have already made about the way we lead our lives have been slowly eating away at the very support system that enables us to live and breathe.

I am even more convinced about ‘Peak Soil’ than about ‘Peak Oil’.

Faced with facts we cannot argue against, we need to start putting ‘life’ ahead of ‘lifestyle’. As global citizens we need to consider the impact of our actions in other parts of the world, and stop tolerating greed.

Ian Johnson Secretary General, The Club of Rome

Ian Johnson underlined Prof Lal’s emphasis on values.

There have been more fights over land than about the resources above and below the land, and sadly that will continue. Anywhere you have degraded lands, an increase in population and decreasing water supply, as in much of the Sahel, it’s open territory for conflict.

So getting land management right, and getting it restored to increase the amount of useful land, strikes me as both a development issue and also a peace issue.

We have the wrong economic model – the wrong economic growth model for the world we live in. It was perfect at the turn of the last century. We’ve got to re-shift, re-calibrate, re-engineer our economic growth, so that we grow prosperity for all not money for a very few.

Forums such as this one, Caux, are invaluable because they bring an odd assortment of people from all over the world together, with a common purpose……the value of these kinds of events is that it is a very safe, secure space where people can discuss and throw ideas around, bounce ideas, with people they would not normally meet. I’ve met a number of people from the Sahel, from Niger, a lot of people with ideas, and I think the notion of providing safe space for ‘ideas generation’ is an invaluable one.

‘There have been more fights over land than about

the resources above and below

the land, and sadly that will continue.’

‘I am even more convinced about “Peak Soil” than about “Peak Oil”’

Allan Savory. President, Savory Institute; Zimbabwean biologist, environmentalist, soldier,

exile, farmer and winner of the 2003 Banksia International Award and the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge.

Human endeavour depends on agriculture, it is the base of everything, but it is endangering us more than any other extractive industry because of erosion. Globally soil, which is the greatest reservoir of fresh water, is eroding at a rate of 8 – 10 tons per human per day.

Desertification is blamed on livestock, but livestock is not the cause. One cause is over-resting the land, which interrupts the processes needed for the soil to absorb organic matter and therefore improve fertility. We can address desertification through the use of livestock… Holistic Planned Grazing – grassland management that mimics with domestic livestock the effect of the large herds of wild herbivores prevalent in earlier eras – has yielded immediate and consistent results from its first testing.

Stopping desertification actually makes money and it brings peace. The knowledge is already available. What are the barriers that stop us from implementing solutions? Our own organisations and institutions which have a vested interest in false ‘received wisdom’. The future depends on public opinion speeding institutional change.

Seventy million people are now climate refugees, displaced by natural hazards since 2009...particularly Indigenous and tribal peoples, who are the best guardians of the lands they live on.

IUCN’s Plant a Pledge initiative believes it is important we achieve the Bonn Challenge – in September 2011 commitments were made to the Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration by governments, business and environmental experts to work towards the restoration of 150 million hectares of lost landscapes by 2020. Why then are we not making the progress we need to? It is resistance from our egos, personal and institutional.

Bianca Jagger. Founder & Chair, Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation;

IUCN Plant a Pledge Ambassador; Member, Executive Director’s Leadership Council, Amnesty International USA.

Bianca Jagger added a strong human rights perspective, emphasizing the importance of cultural identity and gender to the discussion.:

‘The earth, the air, the land and the water are not an inheritance from our forefathers but a loan from our children’ (– attributing the quote to Gandhi). My generation has done a bad job in keeping Gandhi’s saying.

VOICES FROM

‘Why then are we not making the progress we need to? It is resistance from our egos, personal and institutional.’

THE DIALOGUE

groundbreaking presentation demonstrated how soil will be central in any sustainable future:

The choices we have already made about the way we lead our lives have been slowly eating away at the very support system that enables us to live and breathe.

I am even more convinced about ‘Peak Soil’ than about ‘Peak Oil’.

Faced with facts we cannot argue against, we need to start putting ‘life’ ahead of ‘lifestyle’. As global citizens we need to consider the impact of our actions in other parts of the world, and stop tolerating greed.

Tony Rinaudo Natural Resources Advisor, World Vision

For me this marks the culmination of over 30 years of struggle over issues of deforestation, land degradation and consequent hunger. More importantly, I believe it will also mark the beginning of a re-greening movement that will transform landscapes, significantly contributing to beating famine in East Africa and beyond.

When my wife and I first moved to Maradi, Niger we were overwhelmed by the environmental destruction and suffering. Our initial efforts met with failure, but a solution came as an answer to prayer. Our attention was drawn to desert bushes which we had ignored as useless.

From Geoffrey Lean’s report in the UK’s Daily Telegraph: ‘The bushes turned out to be clusters of shoots from the buried stumps of long-felled trees, whose root systems still drew water and nutrients from far beneath the arid soil. The shoots could never grow much before being cut or eaten by livestock, but when Rinaudo pruned them down to a single stem and kept the animals away, they shot up into substantial trees within four years.

As the trees grew, so did crops. And as local farmers began

reaping good harvests, neighbours and visitors followed suit. Now, two decades later, some 200 million trees have been regenerated in this way, covering five million hectares of Maradi and neighbouring region of Zinder, enabling the growing of enough extra grain to feed 2.5 million people. Besides increasing harvests and reducing poverty, all this helps combat climate change. The Sahel’s regenerated trees can take 30 tonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere per hectare’

Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) is a low-cost, sustainable land-restoration technique used to combat poverty and hunger amongst poor subsistence farmers in developing countries by increasing food and timber production and resilience to climate extremes. It involves systematic regeneration and management of trees and shrubs from tree stumps, roots and seeds. You don’t have to do much. The trees will grow if you stop burning and over-grazing. With FMNR farmers in Niger are growing an additional 500,000 tonnes of grain a year.

Conservation requires group work, which in turn creates a situation of trust and cooperation. It’s a very successful bottom-up approach…empowering farmers to share with other farmers. … Think of dry land not as ‘wasteland’ but as ‘waiting land’.

U n d e r g r o u n d F o r e s t

‘We can address desertification through the use of livestock.

Stopping desertification actually makes money and it brings peace.’

Keynote by Bianca Jagger Panelists- Adam Koniuszewski, COO, Green Cross International - Tony Rinaudo, Natural Resources Advisor, World Vision- Simon Maddrell, Executive Director, Excellent Development - Peter Rundell, former head of DFID Libya (moderator)

Monday, 8 July

Community-driven water and land restoration in the Thar desert, India. Prithvi Raj Singh and Kanupriya Harish, Jal Bhagirathi FoundationThe links between sustainable land use, identity and tenure. Noel Oettle, Environmental Monitoring Group, South AfricaPost-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Ana Cristina Angulo-Thorlund, Gender Liaison Officer, UNISDRThe potential of sand dams to restore degraded lands. Simon Maddrell, Executive Director, Excellent Development Empowering Women through Peace Circles. Joy Mbaabu, founding director of Amani Communities Africa, Nairobi, Kenya; and Kate Monkhouse, Creators of Peace. Landscape in a Rice Bowl. Kosima Liu, Executive Board Member and Associate Director, Environmental Education Media ProjectCommunity-driven soil and water conservation and climate-smart agriculture in Makueni County, Kenya. Cornelius Matheka, Stephen Musyoka and Andrew Silu, African Sand Dam Foundation.

Speakers / Panelists

Workshops

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Keynote by Allan Savory Panelists- Jakob Rhyner, Vice Rector, United Nations University- Bernd Wilke, Top Topic Manager Partnering for Food Security, Swiss Re - Juan Gonzalez-Valero, Head of Public Policy & Partnerships, Syngenta - Atam Sandhu, CEO, Developing Market Associates - Ilan Chabay, Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies- Margareta Barchan, Senior Partner, New Angles (moderator)

Tuesday, 9 July

Resilience Jakob Rhyner, Vice Rector, United Nations UniversityFarmer-managed re-greening: how to build a movement? Chris Reij, VU University; World Resources Institute + Tony Rinaudo, Natural Resources Advisor, World Vision, Australia. Empowering pastoralists to reverse desertification and removing barriers to large-scale land restoration. Allan Savory, President, Savory Institute.Investment Opportunities for Global Earth Repair Work & Ecosystem Restoration: Making the Case. Rhamis Kent, Program Director, Rame Environmental Education Programme. Trust-building amongst pastoralist communities in Kenya. Alan Channer, Trustbuilding facilitator, Director of FLTfilms, and Joseph Karanja, a leader of Kenya’s Clean Election Campaign.Sustainable development through community building and individual change – a rural water management case study. Jayashree Rao, Executive Director, Grampari, IndiaRestoring Degraded Ecosystems by Unlocking Domestic Organic Market Potential: Case Study from Zimbabwe. Georgina McAllister, Programmes Director, Garden Africa. Case study: Forest and land restoration project in Laos. Tom Duncan, Ecoplan Consulting + Per Bondesen, Prime Consultancy.

Speakers / Panelists

Workshops

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ns Businesses are often looking for investment opportunities, and for •many, land restoration is a bigger opportunity than they may think.Enable businesses to co-create projects, along with government •and civil society, rather than seeking to bring them in later.New forms of insurance, accessible to small farmers, can be used to •build a community’s resilience in the face of adverse weather events.

Con

clus

ions Large scale land restoration is already being achieved, in a variety of ways •

that can readily be scaled up, for example in China and the Sahel region.

Not enough is known about this even in the countries where it is •happening. Its importance and potential is not yet recognised.

There is a need for active networks of land restoration experts, •funders and activists, for mutual support and exchange of information and discoveries.

Trust, between communities affected by desertification, and also •between those who work on the land and policy-makers, is a prerequisite for land restoration.

Iftar at Caux — the Dialogue fell during Ramadan.

GROU

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– esp

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the S

ahel Wednesday, 10 July

Speakers / PanelistsMorning Keynote by Ahmedou Ould Abdallah Panelists- Luc Gnacadja, formerly an environment minister of Benin - HE Ridha Bouabid, Ambassador to the UN of the International Organization of La Francophonie - Chris Reij, Professor, Centre for International Cooperation, VU University, Amsterdam; Senior Fellow, World Resources Institute - Dennis Hamro-Drotz, Programme Officer, UNEP- Ramadane Barma, Secretary General, La Médiature de la République, Chad- Martin Frick, Initiatives for Land, Lives and Peace (moderator)

Afternoon Keynote by Julia Marton-Lefèvre

Climate Change, Migration and Conflict in the Sahel. Dennis Hamro-Drotz, Programme Officer, United Nations Environment Programme; Dina Ionesco, Policy Officer, International Organization for Migration Linking policy and practice: preventing conflict around water, land and food. Lynn Finnegan and Diane Hendrick, Quaker UN OfficeKeeping a technological eye on dryland degradation and restoration: New science informing policy and action. Mark Mulligan, Senior Fellow on the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre Pastoralist/Cultivator conflict and mediation in Chad and Nigeria. HE Ramadane Barma and HE Mahamat Nimir, La Médiature, Chad; Abderamane Gossoumian, National Coordinator, Peace and Reconciliation Network, Chad; Imam Muhammad Ashafa, Nigeria.

Workshops

Con

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ions Land restoration and security are inextricably part of the same problem •

and can be part of the same solution.Addressing development and security challenges through land •restoration is for many a novel and promising approach.In a region as large as the Sahel, not all security problems have to be •resolved before land restoration solutions can start on a large scale.Good governance is essential for the right policies and sufficient trust •to emerge.

Initiatives Fair

Participants enjoy afternoon tea, and the view from the Caux terrace

over Lac Leman (Lake Geneva).

More than just a conference, in a stunning settingPractical work for all

– even top officials!

HE Ridha Bouabid Ambassador to the UN of the International Organization of La Francophonie

The situation in the Sahel needs to be addressed multi-laterally, with all nations of the region working together. The OIF contributes to this by facilitating dialogue and supporting fair electoral processes.

Chris Reij Senior Fellow, World Resources Institute

The current agricultural modernisation paradigm [in African drylands] is not sustainable in practice, yet it is still the promoted practice. It is a recipe for disaster. We have projects in Mali with 400,000 women in credit and savings opportunities. These women are becoming leaders in their communities.

Juan Gonzalez-Valero Head of Public Policy & Partnerships, Syngenta

Start by not excluding businesses. Business always looks for investment opportunities…. Don’t ask to join existing ventures, focus on co-creating initiatives instead.

Bernd Wilke Top Topic Manager Partnering for Food Security, Swiss Re.

Swiss Re has begun providing micro-finance for farmers… and has launched the R4 Rural Resilience Initiative. This gives poor farmers and rural households the option to pay for insurance by contributing labour to local climate adaptation measures, such as crop irrigation and forestry projects.

Managing risks costs less than managing a crisis, keeping people who are already making a living from the land on the land. R4 provides insurance money to continue living on the land even after a disaster.

Incorporate business early and develop initiatives together to build something sustainable. Otherwise we are always in crisis mode.

Atam Sandhu CEO, Developing Market Associates

I came to Caux because I want to figure out ways for sustainable investment in agriculture, which is going to be our economic saviour with increasing rates of youth unemployment.

Ilan Chabay Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam

At present we don’t train students to think holistically. We need to do this, and to start earlier.

Jakob Rhyner Vice Rector, UN University.

The UN University is investigating environmentally induced migration: When do people migrate? How they decide? And why? Often men migrate, leaving women to care for the children and for the land. In many cultures this results in a growth of gender issues.

‘Incorporate business early and develop initiatives together.’ — Bernd Wilke

HE Ridha Bouabid Ambassador to the UN of the International Organization of La Francophonie

The situation in the Sahel needs to be addressed multi-laterally, with all nations of the region working together. The OIF contributes to this by facilitating dialogue and supporting fair electoral processes.

Chris Reij Senior Fellow, World Resources Institute

The current agricultural modernisation paradigm [in African drylands] is not sustainable in practice, yet it is still the promoted practice. It is a recipe for disaster. We have projects in Mali with 400,000 women in credit and savings opportunities. These women are becoming leaders in their communities.

Ahmedou Ould Abdallah President of Centre 4s, former Mauritanian Ambassador. Formerly UN Special Representative to Burundi, West Africa and Somalia. Co-founder and Advisory Board member, Transparency International.

To me there is no doubt, that to address the nexus: peace building, economic development and sustainable development, is of importance, especially to the Sahel Sahara region.

For the past few years, violent extremism has taken and deepened its roots in this vast region… affected by a number of common and serious problems: deforestation, overgrazing, unproductive wastelands... a region lightly populated, little equipped in infrastructures and indeed difficult to govern from far away state capitals.

Understanding this situation and addressing its consequences were and still are the subject of heated local and international debates. However, the issue of environment, especially degraded land, seems to be the missing link…..The impact of climate and environmental factors is often either totally ignored or minimized when addressing the deep social, political and economic crisis.

The responses to this catastrophe lie in the hands of committed citizens, supported by the work of able scientists, experts and activists like most of you in this room…..The barriers to land restoration are not necessarily financial but often cultural…. Trust-building, within and between communities, should remain a priority in policies addressing land protection and restoration. More focus is needed on rural women in the informal sector.

Jakob Rhyner Vice Rector, UN University.

The UN University is investigating environmentally induced migration: When do people migrate? How they decide? And why? Often men migrate, leaving women to care for the children and for the land. In many cultures this results in a growth of gender issues.

‘The responses to this catastrophe lie in the hands of committed citizens.’

Thursday, 11 July... Morning Keynote by

Imam Muhammad Ashafa Interfaith Mediation Centre, Kaduna State, Nigeria; co-winner of the 2009 Fondation Chirac Prize for Conflict Prevention.

“Son of Man raised his voice to Mother Earth:

Why are you unfaithful to us? You were good to our ancestors. Today you have changed, with unfathomable destruction to our family.

Son of Man, the earth is given in trust. Your ancestors kept the trust. You abuse it.

Haven’t I been given freedom and knowledge to subdue the earth for my self-actualization?

Your ancestors told you that land and water are trusts to be handed down. You have blocked the ways with your industrialisation. In the name of security, you have created WMDs. You have caused more pain than I have. Change your ways today. Protect me and I will provide protection and nourishment for you.”Yes, we can change things today. It is not too late. The things we complain about are our own creation…..Go do the little you can, as that little can save the planet.

‘The things we complain

about are our own creation.’

Julia Marton-Lefèvre Director General, IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature), the world’s largest conservation/environment membership organization.

We know that land restoration works. See for example places like the Loess Plateau, in China. In Niger well over 5 million hectares are being reinstated for agroforestry. Restoring 100 million hectares of degraded land would inject $80 billion a year into the world economy. Through the Plant a Pledge scheme, the restoration of 50 million hectares has been pledged to date.

Land degradation is a result of poor governance and often of a lack of trust between land users and the state…..Building trust between communities and government…Governance is an important part of IUCN’s work and we look forward to working with the UNCCD.

Desertification is a threat to world peace and sustainability, and that is why IUCN is joining with UNCCD. Together we will continue to work towards “a land degradation neutral world.”

Nomadic farming is 20% more productive than ranching. And it also helps the environment. Pastoral farming gives security to both humans and nature.

A cooperation agreement between UNCCD and IUCN was signed by Luc Gnacadja and Julia Marton-Lefèvre, during the Caux Dialogue.

Planting a tree in Caux in honour of

Luc Gnacadja’s work at the

UNCCD to bring together the

environmental and security

agendas.

‘Land degradation is a result of poor governance and often a lack of trust between land users and the state.’

‘Through ingenuity and cooperation we can still restore degraded lands and ecosystems…. The Caux Dialogue has become an important global platform to make this happen.’

Adam Koniuszewski COO, Green Cross International

Caux Conference CentreRue du PanoramaCaux, Switzerland

30 June – 4 July 2014

Special opportunity. Register now.

www.caux.ch/register

All of us depend on a thin dusting of topsoil scattered over the continents. History shows how the rise and fall of civilizations stem from the state of the ground beneath their feet. Yet every year an area three times the size of Switzerland is now lost to agriculture. Already 80 per cent of the world’s conflicts take place in the drylands, as people compete for land. And this will get worse as, with population growth, more people will have to be fed from less of it.

Yet this is a reversible crisis. Land can be restored – and this is already happening, at remarkably little cost, all over the world as local farmers take action to re-vegetate dry and degraded land. Such re-vegetation also combats global warming by removing vast amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Nevertheless, international conferences and negotiations over food security, water management, population growth, climate change, peace and security pay little attention to the state of our soils.

Caux has a decades-long track record of addressing the root causes of conflict, and Luc Gnacadja, the Executive Secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, asked it to examine the links between land and security. This led to two well-received full days as part of the Caux Forum for Human Security in 2011 and 2012, and such was the response that in 2013 these were expanded into the four day Caux Dialogue on Land and Security.

Eminent keynote speakers, featured on the previous pages of this report, were complemented by grassroots practitioners presenting spectacular successes, leaving their audiences asking if before/after slides were shown in the correct order. Many different techniques were presented, but everyone agreed that the hardest task is not restoring the land but establishing the human relationships

2013 Chair’s Report

Developing shared visions for Land, Lives and Peace

www.landlivespeace.orgContact: land@iofc.org

S P O N S O R I N G P A R T N E R SO R G A N I Z E R S

The 2014

Addressing the human connections between poverty, conflict and environmental degradation.

CAUX DIALOGUELAND SECURITYon and

L A N D, L I V E S, PEACE.

of trust needed if it is to succeed.

This became particularly clear during the focus day on the Sahel, where participants from governments to nomadic communities identified the loss of land as the biggest single driver for conflict in the region and stressed that any effort to build lasting peace and security must start with restoring it. Indeed rehabilitating land can become a common endeavor for conflicting groups, and the more land is brought back into production, the more competition for land is mitigated.

All this depends on a shared understanding and vision – which can only be achieved with an inclusive, multi-stakeholder approach, including such diverse actors as business, political leadership, foreign donors, the development and security communities and the people of the drylands themselves. Not least, different religious groups need to peacefully work together.

Caux’s ample experience of trust and community building based on values common to all major faiths proved to be highly relevant. Initiatives for Land, Lives and Peace will continue brokering the necessary conversations at Caux and supporting trustbuilding and community action on the ground.

The Caux Dialogue on Land and Security will be an annual meeting place to connect, equip and inspire, and we are greatly looking forward to the next one from June 30th to July 4th, 2014. Please save these dates in your diary, and get in touch at land@iofc.org to help further develop a programme that builds on this year’s success and addresses new needs and questions.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Martin Frick. Chair, Initiatives for Land, Lives and Peace.

Martin serves as Germany’s Ambassador to the international organizations based in Germany.