Workshop on Monitoring climate benefits of sustainable land management with a focus on Soil Organic Carbon - 27-29 April 2021

Topic and aim of the CoP-event

Building on the success of the last event in October 2020, the Climate-Soil Community of Practice (CoP) and the 4 per 1000 Initiative are pleased to announce their next event. The CoP members are professionals in the field of international cooperation and development as well as practitioners looking to improve their technical skills regarding the Climate-Soil-Nexus. The CoP has selected the topic "Monitoring climate benefits of sustainable land management, with a focus on Soil Organic Carbon (SOC)" with special attention to different methodological approaches including remote sensing, farmer-led monitoring in the field, monitoring and upscaling of soil organic carbon with a stratification approach, as well as institutional challenges in applying them.

Sustainable land management is receiving increasing attention as a promising climate action option. As part of GIZ's Sector Project on Soil Protection, 'climate protection through soil conservation' has been defined as a priority area for its activities from 2020 to 2023. Last CoP-Event provided an insight into the growing voluntary carbon market and the role of soil carbon projects in offsetting emissions.

The need of transparent, accurate, consistent and comparable methods for accounting changes in SOC stocks and net GHG emissions remains a challenge, particularly the quantification of the climate effects of sustainable land management interventions. Nevertheless, there are successful pragmatic, farmer-centered approaches, which need to be highlighted to enable collective learning from these experiences.

This CoP is meant to provide a space for actors to exchange knowledge and experiences, to present their work, to learn from each other, and to develop partnerships. At this upcoming event, we invite you to go back to the roots of a true workshop format aiming for participatory presentations, hands-on learning, small-group activities and collective problem solving. For the specific topic of monitoring, we propose to address these subjects illustrated by real-life case studies:

1. Systematic monitoring framework for assessing soil and land health at landscape-level (Southern African countries)
2. Farmer-led monitoring nested into national carbon monitoring platform (Burkina Faso)
3. Soil carbon monitoring of large areas with a stratification approach (Kyrgyzstan)
4. Integration of monitoring in national programs (Burkina Faso)

Throughout the workshop, the discussion will revolve around these guiding questions:

• How does monitoring work on the ground?
•  What are strengths and weaknesses of different monitoring approaches?
• How can monitoring be efficiently organized at the national and local level?
• How can responsible organizations and research institutions cooperate involving farmers/land users?
• How to bridge the gap between anecdotal and experience-based knowledge from farmers and scientifically robust data (incl. data collection and processing)?

Proposed structure of the event

The event will take place on April 27 to 29 and will be structured as a three-day workshop composed of three moderated 2-hour sessions. While we hope that you can attend the entire workshop, participants can pick and choose which session they want to attend.

Importantly, we want to move away from traditional formats of presentations, followed by short questions and answer sessions. Instead, we are proposing interactive sessions, composed of one-hour presentations, that will facilitate knowledge exchange between participants and presenters. Therefore, the moderated sessions will be conceived as a case study presentation followed by an interactive discussion and knowledge exchange or may include breakout groups on specific questions (to be determined by the presenter of each session).

PRELIMINARY AGENDA

Tuesday, April 27 - 13:00-15:15 hrs CET

Session 1:

1. Welcome note and setting the scene by 4p1000/GIZ (15 minutes)
2. Workshop presentation on Carbon Benefits Project and LandPKS (1 hour, led by Eleanor Milne, Colorado State University)
3. Workshop presentation on Monitoring using the SALM approach and integration in national monitoring programs (Georges Kuate, REDD+ consultant in Burkina Faso)

Wednesday, April 28 - 13:00-15:00 hrs CET

Session 2:

1. Workshop presentation on CarbASIA-Project (1 hour, led by Judith Walter and Klaus Eisenack, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
2. Workshop presentation tbd (1 hour)

Thursday, April 29 - 13:00-14:30 hrs CET

Session 3:

1. Workshop presentation on Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (1 hour, led by Leigh Ann Winowiecki, World Agroforestry Centre ICRAF)
2. Final wrap-up of the workshop by 4p1000/GIZ (15 minutes)
3. Q&A on next steps for the CoP (15 minutes)

Feedback request

We want this CoP to be lively and innovative. Therefore, we would like to ask you for your feedback on the workshop concept and format. Please consider yourself co-organizers discussing this as a virtual group. 

You can provide your feedback through inline comments on specific points (see below). General comments can be expressed at the bottom of the page. Please share your feedback within one week, by 19 March 2021.

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