Millets are a type of ancient grain that humanity has cultivated for over 10,000 years. These hardy, dryland crops include pearl, finger, foxtail and proso millets, which are grown across South Asia and Africa, as well as in Eurasia, North America and Australia. But despite being climate-resilient and nutritious, they’re in steady decline and often overlooked for more commercial crops. Experts warn that we must act quickly to conserve the diversity of the world’s millets before it is lost...

From deadly cyclones to devastating droughts, Africa is already grappling with the effects of the climate crisis, which are being exacerbated by large-scale land degradation. At the same time, the continent is also home to one of the world’s fastest-growing populations, posing major challenges for its food security. One important way to ensure a reliable and nutritious supply of food is by protecting crop diversity from being lost – which is why the Crop Trust has partnered with five African...

Earlier this year, environmental leaders from 185 countries gathered in Vancouver, Canada for the Seventh Assembly of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), where they discussed ways to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises and make conservation more inclusive. The GEF Assembly also saw the launch of the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, a fund for protecting global ecosystems and species. The Fund will dedicate up to 20 percent of its resources to support Indigenous-led initiatives...

In Kenya, farmers have been growing coffee beans for well over a century. This beloved beverage still sustains livelihoods across large parts of the country today – and not only those of farmers, but along the entire length of its coffee chain, from growing to processing to consumption. But now, as climate change and land degradation take hold, while demand for coffee skyrockets, it’s more crucial than ever for Kenya’s coffee industry to rethink the way it operates and find new ways to...

Genebanks hold the foundations of our food supply, offering insurance against the growing pressures of the climate crisis and other threats to crops worldwide. These seed repositories mitigate the risk of a food crisis in the future by ensuring a healthy, stable and diverse variety of crops will be available when we need it most. However, many of the world’s more than 1,700 genebanks are vulnerable to natural disasters, war, social unrest, infrastructure issues, or a simple lack of funds. To...

In the arena of corporate sustainability, there is a wide variety of language and jargon when discussing sustainability standards. How can a company reconcile these different languages as it embarks on its journey of financial reporting? In this episode, produced in cooperation with the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR) Impact Program, find out how a robust set of standards for sustainability disclosures could help highlight opportunities for investors and how various financial...

By 2050, a quarter of the world’s population will live in Africa. The continent and its people have an increasingly crucial role to play in deciding our planet’s fate – and our own. For the first time in its 52-year history, an African woman is steering the ship of a CGIAR research center, CIFOR-ICRAF. Her mission is to “transform lives and landscapes with trees.” In this exciting and exclusive interview, Éliane Ubalijoro, the new CEO of CIFOR-ICRAF and director general of ICRAF, shares her...

Millions of people around the world still rely on wild meat as part of their basic diet, with an estimated 5 to 8 million people depending on bushmeat consumption in South America alone. However, unchecked hunting in environments already under pressure can contribute to the depletion of wildlife, threatening entire ecosystems as well as the people who rely on them. The Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) Programme is a major initiative of CIRAD, the World Conservation Society (WCS), the...

If fashion were a country, it would be the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China and the U.S., contributing about 10% of global emissions. Each year, clothing production uses enough water to provide for 5 million people, while at the same time, up to 92 million tons of used clothes end up in landfills. This is the age of fast fashion – cheap, mass-produced clothes designed to reflect the latest trends, with new collections being released all the time to tempt us into...

Can soil save us from our disastrous climate trajectory? While the search continues for natural and technological ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere, we seem to have forgotten just how much can be stored in the ground beneath our feet. Soil holds an estimated 2,500 gigatons of carbon, which is more than all carbon in the atmosphere and in plants combined – and scientists believe it could sequester billions more tons annually through more sustainable agricultural and land use...

Africa faces a dilemma: how can it continue to develop and deliver better lives to its people without drastically growing its carbon footprint – especially given that it’s already being hit hard by the climate crisis? Some African leaders are still considering investing in gas and oil exploration, even though climate experts insist that countries should instead focus on expanding their renewable energy sectors. In this episode, originally released in July 2022, we examine how these...

What does it mean to be a leader in sustainable finance? In this episode, we chat with Ayesha Khan, regional director of Acumen Pakistan, and Maria Amália Souza, founder of the Casa Socio-Environmental Fund – two of the women celebrated in this year’s 16 Women Restoring the Earth campaign, which honors and promotes the incredible work of a selection of women over the past year. From supporting grassroots projects in South America to investing in more resilient food systems in Pakistan, tune...

About halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole lies the world’s most important library of seed samples: the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. It’s somewhat of a backup disk for the global food supply, where an extraordinary diversity of crucial crops can be retrieved if these resources are lost at regular genebanks. In honor of its 15th anniversary, the Vault has opened its doors to new seed deposits – and to mark the occasion, we’re chatting with Åsmund Asdal, who coordinates its...

War and conflict can have farther-reaching and longer-lasting impacts on our planet than meets the eye. Aside from the destruction of landscapes and human livelihoods, other less apparent costs include military pollution, the curtailing of beneficial programs and projects, mass displacement of humans, and major shifts in economic and social priorities once turmoil subsides. War can cost countries over 40% of their GDP – funds that could have otherwise been invested in protecting the...

Rural women have enormous potential to produce and scale up solutions to the climate crisis, food insecurity and poverty, but they often still lack the resources and recognition they need to succeed. That’s why Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (WOCAN) created the world’s first framework measuring and monetizing women’s empowerment – the W+ standard. Developed with women in rural Kenya and Nepal, the framework provides metrics and procedures to...

In 2005, member states of the UN began developing a framework that was meant to ensure the protection of the world’s most important, carbon-sequestering, life-giving forests. Given that many of these ecosystems are located in low- and medium-income countries, the framework is designed such that rich countries provide financial rewards for forest protection, coupling conservation and climate change mitigation with economic growth in parts of the world that need it most. In 2013, the framework...

The ocean covers 70 percent of our planet and supplies half of the oxygen we breathe. Unfortunately, we haven’t taken great care of it: the climate crisis and our burning of fossil fuels are changing its weather-regulating systems, raising its waters to threatening heights and acidifying its pH balance beyond what its species can survive. And yet, recent climate action has primarily focused on land, leaving the ocean neglected and missing the science, policy and funding it needs in order to...

Last year, Landscape News ran its Routes to Roots series on forest restoration, zooming out to see the extent of global efforts to bring more forests back onto this planet, then zooming in on the various methods by which that is being done. Now, we’re revisiting the topic at the start of 2023 – yet another year in which we can say that forest restoration is needed more than ever to achieve climate, biodiversity and human rights goals. In this episode, we’re joined by acclaimed young forester...

Could the climate crisis kill coffee? Rising temperatures will cause production to decrease drastically in the world’s most suitable growing areas. Meanwhile, the crop requires huge amounts of water to irrigate, process and transport it across the world, which is quickly becoming unsustainable. Luckily, different coffee actors, from brand-name companies to cooperatives and NGOs, are working together to help ensure this commodity remains with us by making each step along its value chain more...

Africa is set for a population explosion in the decades ahead, with a whopping 60% of the continent’s population currently under the age of 25. This booming young demographic comes with major challenges but also presents enormous opportunities to restore African landscapes through green jobs and sustainable agriculture. In this episode, first aired in April 2022, we meet three young African environmentalists to discuss how they’re transforming their local landscapes to be more vibrant,...

Over the past decade, Latin America has faced a series of human-caused oil spills and climate disasters that have changed the face of the region. These disasters have left already vulnerable communities and ecosystems even worse off and facing crippling damages and risks that are ruining livelihoods and causing irreversible damage to nature. What are the immediate and longer-term consequences of oil spills – and how can we best mitigate their toxic impacts or even prevent them from happening...

It’s becoming increasingly clear that gender equity is crucial across every stage of the supply chain for the products we consume. But how can it be achieved? There are numerous projects and initiatives seeking to make the world’s favorite commodities more sustainable and equitable. For every step between, say, a coffee plant being raised in Ethiopia to a cappuccino being served in New York, some important questions must be raised: Are women not only being asked to participate in making...

Southeast Asia is globally renowned for its magnificent seascapes that have been supporting its people’s livelihoods, well-being and sense of identity for centuries. But as the region now grapples with the climate crisis to plastic pollution and overexploitation, the question must be asked: For how much longer can its precious marine resources hold on? In this episode, originally live-streamed in June 2022 in collaboration with the Youth in Landscapes Initiative, we speak with two young...

Let’s be honest: climate science is full of impenetrable jargon, from “greenhouse gases” to “loss and damage” and “net zero” – as we learned in last week’s climate crash courses. But how much do these terms really mean to people who aren’t deeply involved in climate spaces? How many people actually think about keeping global warming under 2°C, perhaps even when they come face to face with it during a heatwave or hurricane? How do we close the gap between science and the average person? It...