This year marked an exciting transition for the 1000 Landscapes (1000L) partnership as we turned years of collaboration and planning into action. Together, we developed and launched practical resources for landscape leaders, hosted webinars and events on a global stage and put the spotlight on inspiring Landscape Partnerships (LPs) worldwide. We brought together finance, policy and land management leaders and showcased the power of multi-sectoral collaboration.
In 2023, we’re looking forward to an exciting year of expanding impact and learning. But first, here’s a look back at our most outstanding achievements in 2022.
We kicked off a year of action in Ecuador.
After two-and-a-half years of working remotely through the pandemic, 1000L partners gathered in person for a week in the vibrant seascape of the Galápagos Islands. The workshop allowed team members to deepen their relationships and turbocharge the initiative’s radical collaboration. They also benefited greatly from connecting with local landscape leaders in the field. To learn more about 1000L’s time in the Galapagos, check out this blog from Terraso.
We advocated for landscape-level transformation on the global stage.
1000L helped put LPs and their potential for scaling climate, biodiversity and land-use solutions on the center stage during this year’s major global conferences.
At the UN Convention to Combat Desertification conference in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, 1000L and partners highlighted the need for more holistic land-use policies in preventing land degradation and for governments and other prominent institutions to enact such measures. In November, we traveled to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to spotlight the potential role of LPs in scaling natural climate solutions and showcased examples of initiatives implementing climate-smart landscape solutions around the world. We also highlighted the urgent need to redirect and reimagine financial flows to better support large-scale climate resilience.
We closed out the year in Montreal, Canada, attending the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, arguing that transformative public and private investments in landscape-level solutions are the best ways to safeguard biodiversity.
We continued our co-design, testing and demonstration efforts.
Over two years into the design, testing and demonstration phase (2020-2023) of 1000L and just over one year away from transitioning to our scaling phase (2024-2030), our efforts are yielding promising results.
Our team working on LP capacity strengthening is developing a comprehensive set of learning modules around the elements and outputs of the Practical Guide to Integrated Landscape Management (ILM). They are also creating resources to help LPs build core capabilities related to ILM, such as diversity and inclusion, facilitation and analyzing ecological flows. In 2023, the team will begin testing these modules with LPs.
The team developing innovative finance solutions to fund landscape-focused projects is working intensively in four landscapes. In these locations, they are learning from their efforts to build a pipeline of inter-related investment opportunities that support a landscape-wide vision of sustainability. They are designing the process to produce results for the participating landscapes and build replicable processes, tools and learning that can advance this work elsewhere.
The group behind Terraso, our digital hub for landscape leaders, spent hundreds of hours consulting LPs in more than a dozen landscapes. These conversations are meant to help us understand the challenges landscapes face and find solutions that software and technology can help solve. Terraso is still in the early stages of development, but users can already create maps to help visualize and share their data. In 2023, users will gain access to new capacity-building, storytelling and finance-related tools.
The team designing our Community Catalyst program began a pilot project in Kenya to explore how 1000L might mobilize a coalition of LPs to share knowledge, learn together and advocate for their landscapes. In close collaboration with local partners SANREM and Eden Thriving, the team has consulted with numerous local leaders across Kenya. In 2023, it will focus on bringing these leaders together to act nationally.
We debuted new tools for strengthening landscape partnerships.
In October, 1000L hosted two webinars to debut new resources designed to support leaders in their LP journey. The first spotlighted our Practical Guide to ILM, which provides a locally adaptable process and practical guidance for implementing ILM. The webinar featured case studies from land- and seascape partnerships in Brazil and Mexico currently implementing ILM.
The second webinar showcased Landscape Enterprise Networks (LENs), a novel finance mechanism that creates marketplaces to help large corporations and government agencies identify and fund regenerative activities within landscapes. In this session, experts from 1000L’s Finance Solutions Design Team shared the origins of the mechanism’s development and what is in store for its adoption across landscapes.
We launched Landscapes in Action.
Each LP has a unique journey and story to tell. Our Landscapes in Action multimedia series aims to showcase LPs’ incredible efforts to build a better future for their communities. The first in this interactive series is the inspiring story of Kenya’s Kijabe Environment Volunteers and their decades-long journey to help communities become more prosperous, sustainable and resilient.
Dive into the sights and sounds of Lari and follow the story of hope and regeneration. We look forward to bringing more landscapes to life for our audiences in 2023.
We grew our community of landscape leaders.
Collaboration between LPs and leaders is critical to guiding our efforts and ensuring our work responds to their needs. In 2022, 1000L brought together six passionate leaders operating at the forefront of ILM from Brazil, Kenya, Mexico, Niger, Spain and Vietnam. This Landscape Leaders Advisory Group guides and advises our efforts across the initiative.
In 2023, we will continue to deepen our relationships with LPs as our radical collaboration grows and as we amplify our testing and demonstration efforts. You can learn more about some of the LPs collaborating with us here.
Looking ahead.
We invite you to continue this journey with us in the new year as we work together to build sustainable landscapes for people and the planet.
