Other meetings & events

Dr. Mariam Akhtar-Schuster welcomed the participants to the full-day UNCCD-SPI First Science Day and emphasised that the Science Day should provide a unique opportunity for SPI members to interact with experts from different fields related to land degradation, desertification and drought, including policy-makers, scientists, CSOs, development agencies and other science-policy panels and bodies. She stressed that representatives from the media arena have been invited as well as this should further support raising awareness of the causes and socio-economic impacts of the degradation of natural resources and the need for integrated planning and implementation of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) initiatives at country level to achieve sustainable development.

The 20th biennial Australian Rangeland Society (ARS2019) conference will be held in Canberra 2-5 September 2019 at the Kambri Convention Centre. The conference will bring together managers, researchers and policy makers to promote resilient rangeland environments and communities in times of change.  The conference will address three main directions for the resilient future of rangelands: Rangeland management in times of changing markets, environments and societal expectations Alignment of policies that support the resilience of rangeland communities and environments Emerging technologies, new practices and innovative social arrangements in the rangelands A call to submit a short abstract to sharing your understanding in various ways at the conference is now open until 1 May 2019. More info...

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an urgent call for action by countries to preserve our oceans and forests, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth. The land management SDGs call for consistent tracking of land cover metrics. These metrics include productivity, land cover, soil carbon, urban expansion, and more. This webinar series will highlight a tool that uses NASA Earth Observations to track land degradation and urban development that meet the appropriate SDG targets.   SDGs 11 and 15 relate to sustainable urbanization and land use and cover change. SDG 11 aims to "make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable." SDG 15 aims to "combat desertification, drought, and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation neutral world." To assess progress towards these goals, indicators have been established, many of which can be monitored using remote sensing.   In this training, attendees will learn to use a freely-available QGIS plugin, Trends.Earth, created by Conservation International (CI). Trends.Earth allows users to plot time series of key land change indicators. Attendees will learn to produce maps and figures to support monitoring and reporting on land degradation, improvement, and urbanization for SDG indicators 15.3.1 and 11.3.1. Each part of the webinar series will feature a presentation, hands-on exercise, and time for the speaker to answer live questions.   This training has been developed in partnership with Conservation International.   Learning Objectives: By the end of this training, attendees will:   Become familiar with SDG Indicators 15.3.1 and 11.3.1 Understand the basics on how to compute sub indicators of SDG 15.3.1 such as: productivity, land cover, and soil carbon Understand how to use the Trends.Earth Urban Mapper web interface Learn the basics of the Trends.Earth toolkit including: Plotting time series Downloading data Use default or custom data for productivity, land cover, and soil organic carbon Calculate a SDG 15.3.1 spatial layers and summary table Calculate urban change metrics Create urban change summary tables  Course Dates:  Tuesdays, July 9, 16, and 23, 2019. Times: 10:00-11:30 EDT (UTC-4) Presented in English               or              18:00-19:30 EDT (UTC-4) Presented in Spanish   Registration Information available here.

A five-day residential course organized in Switzerland by the Caux Forum, Initiatives of Change International, IUCN, The Global Evergreening Alliance, Geneva Centre for Security Policy and UNCCD will explore the nexus of land, human security and climate change, generating sustainable solutions for people and planet. Registration info...

NGOs, scientists, local authorities, international institutions, private and public sector actors will  meet in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso o discuss and share their position on the field of land degradation, biodiversity, climate change and their consequences for global North and South. The non-state actors summit, co-organized by UNCCD, CARI Association and SPONG is expected to attract hundreds of participants from around the world. More info ...