Communications and outreach

CIFOR’s network of knowledge-sharing pathways grew even more in 2015, extending the reach of our scientific research through a revamped Forests News and monthly news update, the cifor.org library, social media channels and a listserv of over 4400 journalists worldwide.

GLF: Turning commitment into action

For the third consecutive year, the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) was the largest event convened on the sidelines of the 21st UNFCCC Conference of Parties, held in Paris on 5–6 December. Over two days, the Forum brought together more than 3200 participants from the finance, agriculture, forestry, water management and other land use sectors.

While negotiators hashed out the Paris Climate Agreement, the 2015 Forum focused on turning commitments into action. In more than 40 sessions and knowledge-sharing activities, experts presented the latest research findings, technical approaches and best practice examples focused on restoration, tenure, finance and trade, and how to achieve the SDGs and climate goals.

“One big step that this forum took some years ago was to move beyond sector and start thinking in terms of place.”


A year-long outreach and capacity building program built momentum for the event though social media channels, a photo competition and the Youth in Landscapes Initiative. social media channels, online activities, a breakout-event focused on finance, and the Youth in Landscapes Initiative.

Key 2015 Forum outcomes

  • 3200 participants from 135 countries, including:
    • 19 ministers and heads of state
    • 148 organizations facilitating discussions

At the Forum, participants committed to:

  • restoring 128 million ha of degraded and deforested landscapes
  • protecting watersheds across the Andes, led by 125 city and regional governments
  • the first and only payments for ecosystem services initiative in the Pacific Islands
  • the International Partnership for Blue Carbon led by the Governments of Australia, Costa Rica and Indonesia

 

GLF’s evolving social network

2014 campaign
2014 campaign

2015 campaign
2015 campaign

For a second year in a row, GLF organizers made use of the sophisticated monitoring tool NodeXL and the data illustration software Gephi. The tools helped measure the Forum’s footprint on social media and answer the most important questions related to social media campaigns:

  • Who was part of our social media conversation?
  • How far did we reach beyond our usual networks?
  • How did members of our community interact with each other?

NodeXL data illustrates how the #GLFCOP21 hashtag not only reached more people/organizations than the 2014 event hashtag, but that these entities had more conversations about GLF with accounts from their networks.

GLF: The Investment Case

In June 2015, the partnership behind the Forum successfully convened the first thematic GLF expert symposium Global Landscapes Forum: The Investment Case. The event brought together 150 leading thinkers from the world of finance to scale up solutions aimed at connecting global funds with local farms. This first thematic GLF event produced a roadmap to sustainable landscape finance, outlining critical milestones and practical steps up to 2050.