Register Today for the GCBC’s Third Research Grant Competition (RGC3) Information Webinar Series

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Register Today for the GCBC’s Third Research Grant Competition (RGC3) Information Webinar Series

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Register Today for the GCBC’s Third Research Grant Competition (RGC3) Information Webinar Series

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Agriculture Agroforestry Capacity Building Coastal Ecosystems Conservation and Restoration Food Systems Governance and Policy Improving livelihoods Indigenous Peoples Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Natural Resource Management Nature based solutions Partnership Small Island Developing States

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The GCBC has announced a new series of four information Webinars to assist applicants to develop and submit successful and compelling Concept Notes for the Third Research Grant Competition (RGC3)

The series of four Webinars, will run between Tuesday, 21st and Thursday 30th January, 2025. Each webinar will be repeated to ensure that everyone has a convenient time to attend wherever they are in the world. The webinars will be recorded and subsequently available to view on this website.

This series comprises:

Webinar Series, Part One: RGC3 Themes = featuring an introduction to the GCBC, the Grant Competition timetable and the two focus themes for RGC3. The Webinar will provide an understanding of the GCBC nexus: Climate, Biodiversity and Livelihoods, with an emphasis on how the GCBC aims to address poverty alleviation and climate resilience, focusing on approaches that better value, protect, restore and sustainably manage biodiversity.

Dates and Times:

Tuesday, 21st January 2025 · 07:00 – 08:00 hrs GMT – REGISTER

 Wednesday, 22nd January, 2025 – 16:00 – 17:00 hrs GMT – REGISTER

Webinar Series, Part Two: Delivery Principles – This webinar consists of a presentation on the details behind the 10 GCBC delivery principles with case study examples and guidance for implementation within projects. This will include ▪ Inter-, intra and transdisciplinary research ▪ Innovative approaches ▪ Robust scientific methods ▪ Replicability and scalability ▪ Traditional / local knowledge, ▪ Gender equity, ▪ Social inclusion and empowerment, ▪ Equitable Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS), ▪ Collaborative partnerships, ▪ Needs driven, solutions oriented.

Date and Times:

Thursday, 23rd January, 2025 – 07:00 – 08:00 hrs GMT – REGISTER

Thursday, 23rd January, 2025 – 16:00 – 17:00 hrs GMT – REGISTER

Webinar Series, Part Three: How to Prepare a Concept Note Application – The third Webinar in the series will explore the GCBC Concept Note template and considerations for applicants in developing their content; taking on board learning from the previous two webinars on the themes and delivery principles. The Webinar will also consider both the importance of identifying demand for the project and understanding the problem that will be solved to frame the research questions addressed; and the logical approach needed to identify the project Theory of Change.

Date and Times:

Monday, 27th January, 2025 – 07:00 – 08:00 hrs GMT – REGISTER

Monday 27th January, 2025 – 16:00 – 17:00 hrs GMT – REGISTER 

Webinar Series, Part Four: Research for Impact – the fourth and final Webinar in the series comprises an introduction to the GCBC approach to systems thinking and transformative change, covering what it is and how you can be aware of it as you develop your project. This will include the details behind the GCBC science priorities: ▪ Demonstrating what works, ▪ Capacity building, ▪ Best practice, ▪ Informing policy, ▪ Finance, and ▪ Transformative change to find solutions that can be scaled in regions, within countries or across continents.

Date and Times:

Thursday, 30th January, 2025 – 07:00 – 08:00 hrs GMT – REGISTER

Thursday, 30th January, 2025 – 16:00 – 17:00 hrs GMT – REGISTER

The window for RGC3 Concept Note applications opens on Monday, 3rd February, 2025.

 

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Research Grant Competition 2 (RGC2): The GCBC awards £13.4 million in UK ODA grants for research to find nature-based solutions to climate change and poverty reduction   

Published 14 Jan 2025

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RGC2 awards 18 new project grants worth £13.4 million based on the theme: “Driving innovation in how biodiversity can support climate resilience and sustainable livelihoods through practice and governance”. 

Initial concept note applications for the second GCBC research grant competition (RGC2) numbered 507 from lead delivery partners in 60 UK-ODA eligible countries. This response more than trebled the 155 applications submitted for the first round of grants in 2023. From the initial concept notes, 56 applications were selected to submit full proposals.    

Grant awards were made using several criteria, including applications’ contribution to the context of the RGC2 theme. These involved assessing applicants’ understanding of how addressing evidence gaps in the potential of nature-based solutions using less utilised species (plants, animals, insects, fungi, trees etc.) can contribute to:   

  • improving poor livelihoods through more resilience to climate change;  
  • meeting resource or service demands; and  
  • protecting and conserving traditional knowledge and biodiversity.  

Filling these evidence gaps is critical to finding innovative approaches to guide practice and governance.  

Climate change, biodiversity loss and poverty are three of the most pressing challenges facing the world today and are fundamentally inter-linked. Climate change, driven by human activity, is increasingly and negatively affecting people and the natural environment. Biodiversity loss, which also results from human activity, is causing degraded landscapes and soil and increasing food insecurity. This exacerbates climate risk by reducing the resilience of natural and managed ecosystems. Unfortunately, those living in poverty are often the most vulnerable and the least able to respond to the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss. 

By working in partnership with scientists, research institutions and practitioners around the world, the GCBC seeks to develop innovative research and scalable approaches to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. This will have an impact on ecosystem resilience to climate change, halting and reversing biodiversity loss, contributing to poverty alleviation and helping countries to achieve a nature-positive future. The GCBC is funded by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs working in partnership with DAI as the Fund Manager Lead and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew as the Strategic Science Lead.  

The 18 projects awarded under RGC2 will be implemented in 16 UK ODA-eligible countries in the Global South; seven countries from Latin America (including Central America) and the Caribbean (Brazil; Colombia; Ecuador; Dominican Republic; Guatemala; Panama; Peru); six from Sub-Saharan Africa (Democratic Republic of Congo; Ethiopia; Ghana; Kenya; Tanzania; Republic of Congo); and three from South East Asia and the Pacific (Cambodia; Indonesia; Vietnam).  

Eleven of the RGC2 projects cover broad thematic areas: Agroforestry; Community led approaches; Integrated land / water management; and Forest restoration. Seven of the projects cover more uniquely focused research areas: Seagrass restoration; Carbon markets; Biodiverse seed bank; Mangrove restoration; Peatlands; Land use (landscape level); and Underutilised species for soil restoration.  

“This new round of 18 diverse and innovative projects represents a consolidation of the ‘Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate’ as Defra’s flagship ODA R&D programme.  These new projects will continue GCBC’s growing reputation for delivery of high-quality evidence about the effective and sustainable use of biodiversity for climate resilience and to improve livelihoods.” said Professor Gideon Henderson, Chief Scientific Adviser, UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

“As fund management lead, DAI is delighted to continue our relationship with Defra and especially to welcome the successful applicants who are joining the GCBC’s project portfolio for the next phase of the programme’s development. Through this project round, we will continue to support scientists, academics and research institutions working to build stronger capacity, increase collaboration, deliver high-impact projects and share learning on the biodiversity-climate-livelihoods nexus that will have an impact on ecosystem resilience to climate change, halting and reversing biodiversity loss and contributing to poverty alleviation,” said Luqman Ahmad, Senior Vice President, DAI.  

“As strategic science lead, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew also welcomes the new projects to the growing portfolio. The new evidence, data and knowledge across pressures/drivers, solutions and enablers for the different themes of the grant competitions will support the adoption of systems approaches in tackling the nexus of climate, biodiversity and livelihoods. By understanding and managing the complex interactions between science, society and the multiple interacting systems through temporal and spatial scales it will be possible to recommend solutions – orientated approaches for transformative change across different sectors and regions,” said Professor Monique Simmonds, Deputy Director, Science (Partnerships), The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.    

The 18 Projects funded by RGC2:

Assessing Carbon Credits as a Sustainable Funding Mechanism for Participatory Forest Management in Tanzania – Lead Grantee: Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania (Country: Tanzania)

Biodiversity for climate and social resilience: Empowerment of coastal communities in sustainable production practices in Ecuador – Lead Grantee: Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral – ESPOL, Ecuador (Country: Ecuador)

Biodiversity science in support of community-led conservation of threatened local forests in Tompotika, Central Sulawesi: Protecting biodiversity, ecosystem services and climate resilient local livelihoods – Lead Grantee: Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG), USA (Country: Indonesia)

Biodiversity potential for resilient livelihoods in the Lower Omo, Ethiopia – Lead Grantee: University of Leeds, UK (Country: Ethiopia)

BREL-Borneo: Benefits of Biodiverse Restoration for Ecosystems and Livelihoods in Borneo – Lead Grantee: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, UK (Country: Indonesia)

Cataloguing and Rating of Opportunities for Side-lined Species in Restoration of Agriculturally Degraded Soils in Sub-Saharan Africa (CROSSROADS-SSA) – Lead Grantee: University of Aberdeen, UK (Country: Ethiopia)

Creation of an Intercultural biodiverse Seed Bank with the indigenous “Resguardo Puerto Naranjo” for enhancing restoration and conservation efforts in degraded areas in the Colombian Amazon – Lead Grantee: Fundación Tropenbos, Colombia (Country: Colombia)

EMBRACE: Engaging Local Communities in Minor Crop Utilisation for Biodiversity Conservation and Livelihood Enrichment – Lead Grantee: Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Crops Research Institute (CSIR-CRI), Ghana (Countries: Ghana and Kenya)

Enabling large-scale and climate-resilient forest restoration in the Eastern Amazon – Lead Grantee: Lancaster University, UK (Country: Brazil)

Exploring sustainable land use pathways for ecosystems, food security and poverty alleviation: opportunities for Indonesia’s food estate programme – Lead Grantee: University of Sussex, UK (Country: Indonesia)

Forest restoration on Indigenous lands: Restoring biodiversity for multiple ecosystem services, community resilience and financial sustainability through locally informed strategies and incentives – Lead Grantee: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama (Country: Panama)

Integrated Land and Water Management of the Greater Amanzule Wetland System – Lead Grantee: University of Education, Winneba, Ghana (Country: Ghana)

NATIVE: Sustainable Riverscape Management for Resilient Riverine Communities – Lead Grantee: University of Lincoln, UK (Countries: Colombia and Dominican Republic)

Nature based solutions for climate resilience of local and Indigenous communities in Guatemala – Lead Grantee: University of Greenwich, UK (Country: Guatemala)

Realising the potential of plant bioresources as new economic opportunities for the Ecuadorian Amazon: developing climate resilient sustainable bioindustry – Lead Grantee: Universidad Tecnica Particular de Loja, Ecuador (Country: Ecuador)  

Recognising and rewarding the contribution of Indigenous knowledge for the sustainable management of biodiversity – Lead Grantee: Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), USA (Country: Cambodia)

TRIALS: Translating Research into Action for Livelihoods and Seagrass: Establishing scientific foundation for seagrass restoration and blue carbon potential, with sustainable livelihood development for coastal communities in Central Vietnam – Lead Grantee: WWF-UK, UK (Country: Vietnam)

Using biodiversity to support climate resilient livelihoods in intact tropical peatlands  – Lead Grantee: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK   (Countries: Peru, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo)  

 

Photo Credit (Detail): Laitche

 

 

 

 

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Biodiversity potential for resilient livelihoods in the Lower Omo, Ethiopia

Published 14 Jan 2025

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Country: Ethiopia

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Country: Ethiopia

Lead Partner: University of Leeds, UK

Summary: The project will fill knowledge gaps and elucidate the potential for biodiversity to contribute to and improve livelihood security, adaptation to climate change, and resilience in Ethiopia’s new Tama Community Conservation Area (CCA), where there is a data paucity to manage from.

As the local communities hold rich traditional ecological knowledge, the project will combine systemic biodiversity monitoring with ethnobotany and ethnozoology qualitative data, to address the biodiversity-livelihoods knowledge gap. Datasets will then be input into population models with climate projections to explore future change in biodiversity and thus livelihoods.

The project will co-create management plans for the CCA with its staff, making them climate-resilient. Throughout all activities, capacity building will take place for continuing biodiversity monitoring and resilience assessment by CCA staff through linkages with AMU, so that the CCA can practice evidence-informed adaptive management in the future.

The main impact is to improve social-ecological resilience for beneficiaries in the Mursi, Bodi, Bacha, and Aari communities. The project will contribute to outcomes across the following strategic science principles – creating wide participation to support capacity building for the CCA and communities through robust data collection, sharing best practices and demonstrating what works to inform policy in the Tama CCA, but also other CCAs to inform their sustainable management.

Photograph (detail): Rod Waddington

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Creation of an Intercultural biodiverse Seed Bank with the Indigenous “Resguardo Puerto Naranjo” for enhancing restoration and conservation efforts in degraded areas in the Colombian Amazon

Published 14 Jan 2025

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Region: Amazonas

Country: Colombia

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Country: Colombia

Lead Partner: Fundación Tropenbos Colombia

Summary: The programme will establish intercultural seed banks to store and distribute a wide variety of seeds of indigenous forest species for a variety of uses such as food, medicine, architecture and art, in line with the government’s restoration objectives.

The programme will integrate Indigenous and scientific knowledge to identify and geo-reference seed source trees. Laboratory tests will determine the most efficient local practices for seed production. Local methodologies, participatory action research and quantitative data coming from a live laboratory will be deployed to create a sustainable strategy for intercultural seed banks suitable for the climate and geography of Puerto Naranjo Resguardo and the Amazon.

A systemic approach will allow for innovation in the creation of a scalable plan that positions intercultural seed banks as a local solution to help improve livelihoods, address the current effects of climate change and restore biodiversity in indigenous territories.  Outputs will include local research, scientific articles, a collaborative database, storytelling and a business plan for the community to transform the initiative into a sustainable income-generating opportunity.

Photograph (detail): Dmitry Makeev

 

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EMBRACE: Engaging Local Communities in Minor Crop Utilisation for Biodiversity Conservation and Livelihood Enrichment

Published 14 Jan 2025

Project Details

Country: Ghana

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Countries: Ghana and Kenya

Lead Partner: Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-Crops Research Institute (CSIR-CRI), Ghana

Summary: EMBRACE is a comprehensive project aimed at improving the livelihoods of 1250 impoverished households in Ghana and Kenya, to achieve a 40% improvement by 2027.

EMBRACE will work with 25 communities to promote sustainable agricultural practices, forest conservation, and community empowerment, targeting significant poverty, biodiversity loss and inequality reduction.

EMBRACE’s approach involves establishing 25 agroforestry model farmsteads that integrate snail, mushroom, and beekeeping production, and training 500 women and youth in sustainable agriculture and nursery management to enable them to produce diverse and nutritious food, generate income, and conserve natural resources. The project will also support community-owned nurseries and revolving funds to promote self-sufficiency, gender equity, and social inclusion.

Additionally, EMBRACE will engage stakeholders such as local governments, community leaders, and the private sector, to influence policies that support resource and biodiversity conservation. Through EMBRACE, communities will be empowered to drive their development and make informed decisions about their natural resources.

The project’s impact will be felt beyond the 25 communities, serving as a model for sustainable development and community-led conservation in Ghana and Kenya. Thus, EMBRACE will contribute to a more just and sustainable world, where communities thrive in harmony with nature.

Photograph (Detail): McKay Savage

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Exploring sustainable land use pathways for ecosystems, food security and poverty alleviation: opportunities for Indonesia’s food estate programme

Published 14 Jan 2025

Project Details

Country: Indonesia

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Country: Indonesia

Lead Partner: University of Sussex

Summary: This transdisciplinary project is concerned with understanding the dynamics of land use change and supporting the co-creation of pathways towards sustainable land use that addresses biodiversity, climate change, food security and poverty concerns. The focus is on opportunities for sustainable food estate programmes in Indonesia, in the context of major concerns about their adverse environmental and social impacts. The programme will work with farming communities, NGOs, conservation agencies and government agencies; drawing together quantitative and qualitative data (and formal and informal knowledge) to visualise and assess the multiple values of landscapes, and impact of food estate interventions at sites with a variety of monocrop and agroforestry systems.  It seeks to support productive, evidence-based dialogue through the development and use of an open access mapping and modelling tool; developing land use scenarios that integrate climate resilience and biodiversity conservation into initiatives that support sustainable livelihoods of farming communities and wider food security concerns. Through participatory action research and capacity building activities with key stakeholders, the programme will identify land use planning and policy process opportunities and practical intervention points.

Photograph (detail): Vyacheslav Argenberg

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GCBC Grantees engage at 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 16)

Published 14 Nov 2024

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By GCBC Grantees

Several of the GCBC’s grantees took part in COP16 in Cali, Colombia between 21 October and 1 November, 2024. During this global gathering delegates discussed progress on the implementation of the historic Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (2022) while negotiators discussed ways of preserving biodiversity and tackling the impact of climate change. 

The Nature Transition Support Programme (NTSP) – UNEP’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) hosted a side event ‘transforming economies for nature and people’ to shed light on the dependency of countries’ economies on nature, and the importance of re-thinking how they can change their development trajectories to achieve sustainable development. Featuring a panel comprising of representatives from the governments of Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana and Vietnam. The event showcased the results of the programme achieved to date and sparked a lively debate on how identified challenges can be addressed. Read more on this programme at: https://lnkd.in/dmpp2cdt 

Nature Transition Support Team
The Nature Transition Support Team at COP16

CIASE, the GCBC’s partner on the Gran Tescual Indigenous Reservation Climate Plan, hosted a side event with the Gran Tescual Indigenous Reservation, titled “Pan-Amazonian Dialogue: Intersectional Experiences on Biodiversity and Climate.” Genith Quitiaquez (former governor of the Reservation), Carola Mejía (Climate Justice Coordinator at the Latindadd Network), and Rosa Emilia Salamanca (CIASE Director) shared insights on the ways in which intersectionality, care, and transformative resilience can strengthen the bonds between biodiversity and climate action. 

CIASE also participated in the International Meeting on Women and Biodiversity in collaboration with the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Women’s Vice Ministry. This effort contributed to the Inírida Declaration, a set of recommendations aimed at including women and diverse populations in climate action and biodiversity conservation. 

In collaboration with the Government of Nariño, a department of Colombia, CIASE also presented a photographic exhibition showcasing the botanical richness of the Gran Tescual, inspired by the Illustrated Botanical Guide of the Gran Tescual Reservation. This initiative is part of the “Climate Plan of the Gran Tescual Reservation” project.  

 

CGIAR / CIP – International Potato Center, project team for ‘Harnessing Andean Crop Diversity to Weather Climate Change’ in collaboration with Agrosavia, organized an event on Integrated Conservation, which improves the linkages between in-situ and ex-situ agrobiodiversity conservation. Numerous “seed guardians” from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia attended. To find out more, the open access Spanish language factsheet, Characterizing agrobiodiversity is key to adapting Andean agricultural systems to drought and pests, is available to download here. 

Alliance of Bioversity International – ’Diversity for Resilience and Livelihood’ The project manager, Dr. Dejene K. Mengistu from the Alliance of Bioversity International and Dr. Basazen Fantahun, from Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute (EBI) (a local implementation partner) presented a poster describing the drivers and lock-ins of green development pathways, a proposed research framework, project objectives, and planned activities with expected outputs to more than 250 attending participants in the blue zone of COP16. The poster presentation was well received, generating constructive comments and suggestions from experienced experts in the areas of forest restoration and management. 

 

 

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GCBC project leaders build connections and share learning at International Environment and Climate symposium

Published 22 Oct 2024

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By Samantha Morris, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

The Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate (GCBC) project leaders joined practitioners, researchers and representatives of Indigenous peoples’ organisations from other UK Government environment and climate research programmes in Nairobi for the first International Environment and Climate Research Symposium.

Nature and the environment are the bedrock of our planet, which is facing a triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Action is urgently needed to address these critical issues to secure sustainable livelihoods and human wellbeing.

In September, the International Environment and Climate Research Symposium brought together 84 practitioners, researchers and representatives of Indigenous peoples’ organisations from three of the United Kingdom’s largest environment and climate research programmes. Collectively these three programmes manage £50 million across Africa, Asia, and Latin America:

Establishing shot of attendees at the Kenya Symposium
Delegates at the International Environment and Climate Research Symposium in Nairobi, Kenya Picture: Kew Gardens

The Symposium was held in Nairobi, Kenya. It was planned and delivered in partnership, drawing on the unique skills and experience held by each of the three programmes. Sessions were split over several days, with each programme taking time to meet individually, ending with a joint programme day on 19 September.

Connection in action

For the GCBC, connecting and collaborating with other research programmes demonstrates the potential of working to coordinate research to find solutions to climate change that benefit both people and nature.

All 14 GCBC projects that received funding from the first competitive research grant competition attended the Symposium with 28 project leaders and partners in Nairobi.

During the individual day, the GCBC projects were given space to get into the detail, mapping the characteristics of each project with a focus on geography, themes, methods, and partners. This identified a wide range of synergies across a diverse group of research projects. These points of connection will support the GCBC programme to identify areas where we can develop tools, evidence, and resources to deliver greater impact.

The day also addressed Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI), barriers and opportunities to research impact, and strategies for communicating and influencing to amplify research outcomes. Across these areas, projects shared their experiences as they move from existing practice to better practice, exchanging tools and ideas along the way.

During the joint day, participants from all three programmes enthusiastically exchanged practical ideas, concrete solutions and lived experiences to turn knowledge into impact.

Watch the video from the Symposium below:

The rich discussion highlighted several opportunities:

  • The value of building trust with communities to genuinely devolve decision making, power, and resources to local actors.
  • Sustaining effective stakeholder engagement from the start of interventions and building long term relationships beyond project cycles.
  • Constantly evaluating trade-offs and synergies that accompany a systems approach

To carry these ideas, forward participants from all three programmes discussed the potential for ongoing learning exchange, as well as opportunities and pathways for knowledge sharing.

From connection to collaboration

Overall, the Symposium was an energising and inspiring event, an opportunity to build connect and share both within the GCBC programme and with other UK Government programmes.

Work is underway to explore what future connection and collaboration between UK Government programmes could look like, building on the ideas shared by participants at the Symposium.

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Cefas: New Initiatives Tackle the Challenges of Making Food Truly Sustainable

Published 21 Nov 2023

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This article was originally published on cefas.co.uk on 9th November 2023

A new paper published today sets out a vision for incorporating the fundamentals of sustainability into the design of entire food systems. The paper, Operationalising One Health for Food Systems, published in the journal One Earth, describes the challenges of producing food that is safe, nutritious, economically viable, equitable and environmentally benign across a country’s food system.

The paper argues that the main challenge to sustainable food systems is in dealing with the many hazards associated with the food supply chain, stretching from those that limit supply – like pests, pathogens or chemical contamination – through to the ways that food production drives environmental degradation, including greenhouse gas emissions or fertilisers that damage river biodiversity.

(Image credit: One Earth, Cell Press)

One food wheel diagram.

Hazard control mainly happens inside of individual food sectors like maize crops, beef husbandry or prawn aquaculture, with little attention to how these sectors link and to how the hazards might spread between the sectors. Assessing each hazard individually is also problematic because it will not give the whole picture on their combined impacts on food supply or the environment. Crucially, we also lack the methods to look across all hazards and food sectors, to make informed decisions on which to prioritise.

The answer to this, according to the authors, lies in applying One Health principles to the whole food system. One Health is a concept that aims to optimise the health of humans, animals, plants and ecosystems, with each being equally important. Our paper proposes a ‘One Food’ approach where all food sectors are considered together, incorporating all hazards and the links between them.

The paper is an initiative of the One Food programme, a collaboration between the UK and South African governments, with partners from academia, intergovernmental organisations, industry and NGOs. The programme is developing a food risk tool that combines hazards across food sectors to identify and prioritise intervention strategies. It also examines the policy changes that will be needed to allow a food systems approach to be achieved and how stakeholders can take the movement forward.

Here at Cefas we understand well how land and sea are connected and that the food we produce must balance safety and adequate supply against environmental protection. We are delighted to bring together colleagues from across the food spectrum.

Neil Hornby, Chief Executive of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Programme Lead)

This paper sets out our ambition for a future where animal and plant health experts work alongside environmental and social specialists to solve pressing food problems.

Ian Brown, Director of Scientific Services at the UK Animal and Plant Health Agency, the UK programme co-leads

The topic is discussed in the first of the new Cefas Unchatted Waters podcast series, where Cefas’ Chief Scientist, Professor Grant Stentiford and the One Food lead Dr Julie Bremner consider how these principles can be applied to produce safe and sustainable seafood. The programme will present its work in the 2nd One Food Community Forum on the 28th of November 2023 which is open for registrations currently on the One Food Community website. The One Food programme is funded by the Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate (GCBC) which is a UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) research and development programme that funds research into natural solutions to climate change and poverty.

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Delivering climate resilience through safe and sustainable food systems (OneFood project)

Published 01 Nov 2023

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Country: South Africa

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Country: South Africa

Partners: UK: Centre for Environment Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA); South Africa: Department of Science and Innovation , (DSI); Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR); Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC); National Agricultural Marketing Council, (NAMC); Agricultural Research Council, (ARC); Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, (DFFE); FCDO SIN regional office; Intergovernmental: FAO; plus 13 other partners.

Summary: The indivisible link between food production and nature means that actions on food security impact the environment and vice versa. Climate change adds further complexity to this problem and the combination of these facts is thus a difficult balance that requires a clear understanding of the impacts associated with exploitation of the natural resources and the needs of the communities consuming the food. Hazards drive inefficiencies in food systems. These include those that impact food production and those hazards posed to the environment by production itself. To date, little consideration has been afforded to linkages between specific hazards in driving inefficiencies within and between food sectors, or the impact that multiple hazards have on food system efficiency and sustainability. In addition, appropriate investment in hazard control has not been articulated relative to potential gains for biodiversity, or to reductions in climate impacts resulting from improved food sector efficiency. The OneFood project places hazard profiling and management at the heart of environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable food system design. It seeks to develop new tools for calculating the impacts of hazards occurring between food sectors and considers the consequences for human, animal and plant health and the environment. The project maps hazards across and between food sectors with selected partner countries, will inform modelling of terrestrial and aquatic sectors applicable across multiple geographic and food sector contexts and will examine the food systems in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as biodiversity targets.

Related links: OneFood Community website

 

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