Education for Land: Synergizing the Rio Conventions - Lessons Learned and Inspiring Strategies - Action Dome, UNCCD COP17

Hello. Hey, good afternoon. Oh, let's try that again. Good afternoon. Oh, that's much better. My name is Karen Sudmeyer. I am education, environmental education expert with the G20 Global Land Initiative with UNCCD. I'd like to ask our speakers, invite them to come up to the front, please. Bethany, we have Shine is coming. Yes, please come up front. Let's see our high school student, please come. Yes. And I will formally Amanda, Alejandra, please take a seat. I think, do you mind sitting here in the middle? You get to be the center of attention. Please come. Okay. All right. Well, then let's go to talk a little bit about education for land. So, let's see here. We have one more person missing. Who is missing? Oh yeah. We're waiting for somebody to come from the airport. Masur, so he may come in a little bit later. So, let's see when he comes in. So, that's what the one person that's missing. Okay. Yes? Masur, are you here? Okay, hopefully he will arrive on time. Okay, well, in the meantime, we'll get started. Let's go to the first slide. Let's see if I can get the slides to work. So we have a great event today with quite a few speakers. And the reason why we're here today is really to talk about environmental education as one of the connectors of the Rio Trio, the Rio Conventions. Please sit there. Now, environmental education is about as old as the Rio Conventions, right? Climate change, biodiversity, and land degradation neutrality. And there is a growing demand for professionals, for green skills, for professionals who can navigate the interlinkages between these crises and their social economic drivers. So with five decades of practice and strong alignment with the Rio Conventions, environmental education is uniquely positioned and it's necessary. Land is the basis for all of the conventions. It's thanks to land that we can reduce climate change impacts. It's thanks to land that we can reduce biodiversity. And so land really is a connector between the three Rio Conventions, but so is environmental education. And we know that the youth are our future. And with growing demand for professionals in this field, we really need more young professionals who are capable and who can work on green skills. So we brought together a diverse array of speakers, all with different experiences in environmental education, all working really hard to overcome some of the challenges and promote some of the, I would say, successes in environmental education. So we'd like to also have an interactive session with you all and also learn maybe a little bit about maybe some of the practices that you do in your countries on environmental education. So we have with us Shine Erdenebayar. She's the CEO of the Foundation for Environmental Education from Mongolia. We have Bayarmaa Zugsuren. from the Mongolian National Council for Education Accreditation. We have a high school student with us. Very happy to have you. Her name is Arunzaya Radnaabazar, student at Shine School here in Ulaanbaatar. She's brought some of her friends along from the school, so that's great. Welcome. We should have Mashuur. Shu did who is an eco entrepreneur and one of our star stars in this field but I think he's he's just on his way over from the airport Bethany Walder she's the executive director for the Society for ecological restoration we have Amanda Abram who's the director of global schools program United Nations sustainable development Solutions Network and we have Alejandra Ramos Galvez She's a senior research associate with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security. So I'll take a seat while I'm waiting for Mashhur to come. And Shain, we're going to start with you. You have a few slides, right? So you're going to speak in English, correct? So if you need interpretation, We have interpretation into Spanish, French, and Mongolian. So please pick up a headset at the back if you would like interpretation into one of those languages. Okay, so let's get started. I have your slides. You can actually do them yourself. Okay, so over to you, five minutes. Should be working, okay.

First of all, welcome to Mongolia. I'm very happy to be being also one of the part of the member power in this COP meeting this year. This year, Foundation for Environment Education is 45 years celebrating. And the Foundation for Environment Education in the worldwide is 100 more than 100 organizations from the 85 countries and then we together reach it for the 15 million students in the worldwide through in our fee programs it's in our fee programs interconnected programs because schools is it supporting those school management and learning about the forests is connected to water and biodiversity climate change and livelihoods and then young reporters for the environment empower for the youth investigate challenges and communities then as a supporting uh if he also is a supporting partner for the UN ecosystem registration and then together working with the UNESCO and the North Association for the environment educations now together with the managing for the ecosystem restoration education in the worldwide also. It's now organization information training center for a natural environment. We are the NGO here is in Mongolian. We are the member for the 2011 And then we are adopting the ecological cultural education context through in our programs in the Mongolian roots is here. In last 15 years in our working with the Eco Schools program, almost now is 42% in our general secondary school is registered in Eco Schools in our 15 years long works. And then and then it's 20% of the preschools and then almost 20% of the technical vocational schools is registered for the ECOSCO program. And every two years, we had the monitoring for the some institutional assessment. For example, is the 2025 is demonstrated measurable some results and then just in our schools, it's who is registered to bronze and silver green flag is that last in two years and those schools is increased the green spaces around the 30%. That's the amazing point. And then also they raised some fundings from the communities, from the international agencies, and then almost half million is that they raised the fundings to supporting in these greening areas. It's a amazing work to them. And then also it's that they every year it's almost they are saving almost as a 100,000 USD it's a savings to is a for a government to them saving them energy and invests and then also is a water savings that's the like a gift to is in our is a it's a like a Mongolian public and then also it's just every year it's a day I saved some around the calculating system we counted as a 1,500 tons carbon dioxide decreased. It's not in like a resource service, but it's some institutional, some... points is behind these figures. The students assessing the school grounds, investigating the soil and waste, monitoring resource use, protecting the biodiversity and communicating the solutions. Eco school with greenery institutions while strengthening the student leadership, partnership and responsibility and community ownership. You all know for a Mongolian education for land is inseparable from our national identity. Pastoral livelihoods and the food and water security and future residents all connected for in our land. In assessment indicates you all here the it says last days it's a 70 around the 77% is. degraded or desertification is among Mongolian land. And then last eight decade is a 2.3 Celsius is increased in our average temperature and the 7% is decreased in our declines the perceptions. This trends is bringing the challenges and problems. And then also it's bringing the topics that we need to learn in the survey and have to survive in the future. So these interconnected challenges cannot be addressed through these elected policies or technical measures alone. Education must help the learners understand this relationship among the healthy land and the functioning ecosystem, climate stability and the livelihoods and human well-being. It must connect the scientific evidence with the traditional knowledge to equip learners, investigate the local conditions, evaluate solutions and participation for the restoration. And the last is in our Policy review found alignment among the rock conventions. We all know the three conventions, the sustainable development goals and Mongolian national strategies and education legislation for common pillars in emerging all commercial education and public awareness and communication information. And however, review did that it's in those. related within the real conventions we have fully it's a nice framework it is already documented for the climate change and biodiversity we could not see the any connections to government documents is education for land and the convention to combat desertification that's the point is I want to say then it's just I want to say that my last words and the Eco Schools offers the proven platform, these integrations for the whole schools methodology brings the land biodiversity, climate and water forest, pollution and consumption participation and also. Then is a wish to advocate the sustained policy recognition and technical assistance and the financing aids for the Eco Schools. And the ECHO school related programs, then this movement, and they should be sustained through the shared responsibility. Then rather than the mainly relying, the mainly limited resource for the only for the non-government organization and civil society organizations. And we sincerely thank the government partners and then that have provided the leadership and practical support. By educating for the land, we restore not only ecosystems, but also knowledge, relationship, responsibility, resilience, and hope.

Thank you for all.

Thank you for that. It's very impressive program. I like the eco schools concept, but also seems like they're many challenges along the way. We'll come back to some of those challenges Shine and talk about how you've overcome some of them. Yeah. So now over to you, Bayarmaa from the Mongolian National Council for Education Accreditation. I can help you with the slides if you would like. Yeah. So, and you're going to speak in Mongolian, yes? So anybody who doesn't speak Mongolian, please put on the headset. Over to you, please. Five minutes.

Hello. The same channel in the United States and the United States. This is also noting. I think that's what I think. I think that's what I think. I think that's what it's called. I think that's what it's called. I think that's UNOG in 2015, in 2015, Yamal-Yazhdan Bay, the Bagaev district, the Chechen rebels. UNODC **** Sing, UNODC **** Sing, **** Sing, **** Sing, **** Sing, **** Sing, **** Sing, But some people, the whole person, or the whole system, or the whole system, or the whole system, or the whole person, or the whole person, or the whole person, or the whole system, or the whole person, or the whole system, or the whole system, are just, are just, are just, are just, are just, are in the United Arab Emirates, I would be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able kar cirjana. They will think that they are cheating, but they will not be able to do it. They will not be able to do it. They will not be able to cheat. They will not be able to cheat. They will not be able.

Of secondary schools, 20% of kindergartens and 19% of technical and post-secondary education programs have switched to eco schooling. They're part of the eco school programs. Eco schools, the good lessons learned from Eco Schools. I can say that only students from seventh and eighth grades, they were learning about the soil, about the lands. But when we have introduced Eco Schools, 40% of schools in this Eco Schools network are able to deliver ecological education to children through not only biology teachers, but all the teachers, all the faculty is tasked with delivering to students ecological education, including the biodiversity protection, including the land protection. This is the achievement we can pin down and the what the students what are the the the achievements for the school for the school people for the school students for in being enrolled in eco schools the Children, regardless of their grades, they can work together. They can work also with rangers in the territories, in the localities they live in. They, together with teachers in the ranges, they do soil sampling. They go forward for the Billion Tree Program. They are included in the Mongolian National Billion Tree Planting Program. So basically they are learning from the professionals about caring for land, about caring for biodiversity. They are acquiring better geographical understanding and knowledge, which goes beyond what the textbooks in school offer. So education Ecological Education Pathway is one of the programs which actually stands for learning by doing, adheres to the learning by doing principles and on systematic level we are gearing towards setting the ecological education on a systemic level. And the issues and the challenges that we face, we have many challenges and at the same time we have lots of opportunities. So on UNESCO today, on UNESCO website, there was a program on increasing opportunities for the school children that was set up on the web. And these opportunities in the guidelines that UNESCO is sharing with children, with the younger generation, we want to uptake them as well in our Eco Schools. So to summarize what I've said, There is environmental problem is a challenge of learning and action. So in order to produce action, we have to set up today's education, more productive education. And the best option for such education is eco schools. So introducing ex-schuls and also tying it with action is hugely important. Thank you for your attention. Thank you.

So, I'll just bend that so that it's a little bit more gentle.

Hello everyone, my name is Fatima. I try to improve our environment in Nigeria nowadays. Three quarters of the environment and of the land are quite problematic. That's why we try to attract the young people through our educational program.

Thank you. We can go back to the slides. We'll come back to Menti later on. Go back to the slide, please. And I'm going to introduce our next speaker. So Mashhur, welcome. You've added some gender balance to our lovely panel here. So you're co-founder and CEO of Ankur AI or Al. young entrepreneur program and you were also the 2023 champion of the land restoration category. So tell us how you became the 2023 youth ecopreneur champion in land restoration category and how environmental education can help promote more ecopreneurship. Over to you.

Thank you, Karen. So thank you very much for having me here and it is interesting, a very core topics that is very close to my heart. I belong to a country back in Bangladesh where we have 100,000 miles of arable land and we are almost 95% at the usage rate of that land. It is also degrading. So to answer to Karen's first question, how did we win the accolade was simply by presenting the real challenge of my people. Bangladesh has been experiencing extreme weather climate vulnerability in terms of flash floods, droughts and heavy soil salinity. That's why I presented. And on that stage back in 2023 of WEDF World Export Development Forum that took place right here in Mongolia, Ulan Bator, we were here back in there. So when I communicated that problem with the audience, it somehow instantly connected the audience very clearly. Like this is a problem being understood by the audience and of course by the judges. So that was how we landed into that product. Secondly, what made our solution standing out was the way we were solving it. In a lot of the cases, entrepreneurs will be talking about building technology to solve a problem. But it is barely we keep in mind that it is the technology that might be opening opportunity for the people whom we are solving it, but it is the trust that keeps that door of opportunity open. I presented that, the trust element of our solution. Small farmers, fishermen, Any such marginal community will not be waiting for a technology to be deployed and change their life. They would rather keep doing what they're doing until and unless we hit that trust sweet spot. That's what we talked about on the stage, how we are building trust around a solution. So for the audience, to give a context, my company back in Bangladesh provide soil and weather-based advisory to the small farms to help them improve their agronomy, reduce their input costs, and eventually we connect them with financial institutions. Right now we are working with 33,000 farmers in Bangladesh and seven banks, multiple insurance companies. And we are also doing a small pilot in the Emirates and talking to the Malawi government as well for a pilot. Now this is how it happens. When you bring the real challenge of the people where we belong, like I belong to a farmer family, the audience will immediately connect with that. You don't have to put too much of data on the screen to make them understand this is what the problem, because people understand the real problem. And then when we talk about the solution, let's not just talk about the technology behind the solution. Let's talk about the trust that we're placing the solution among the people for whom we are doing it. So that's how we do it. We do it. And talking about the question of how education, land education can support my journey, I give you a very straight example. I'm personally not a professional. I'm an electronics engineer. And every time I went up any stage, I was asked, why you? How you? This why and how was always burning for me. I didn't have the degree to work in land or soil or farming. But I had that gene built in my core. I came from a farmer family. I've seen what they have been doing for decades, for generations in wrong, believing that this is the right thing they're doing. And eventually when that doesn't work, they will start blaming the almighty God or their fate. So that thing actually was required. Besides my gene, I needed to have education. Thanks to programs like Yeko and a few other UN-supported programs where we got the chance to talk to avid professionals like I remember Tony Simons, the former DG of C40 Craft. I remember him. He was one of our mentors and he was an avid professional in land degradation and bio organisms. So we got to learn from these people. Now imagine if the same thing was taught in academy, I would have better stance on the stage, right? I don't have to spend times to explain that, oh yeah, I am doing it because I am coming from a farmer family. I could have rather spend that time to make my audience understand what extent we could go. So land education is very much important for bringing the education to the real life problem solving capacity, for making the solution much more impactful for the people whom we are building it for. I would stop there.

Okay, perfectly. Thank you very much. Let's give a round of applause. Speaking of formal education, on some of the chairs we have put out little postcards. If you maybe came to our session yesterday, we have two university courses that you can download from our website, which is maybe having some technical issues, but you can write to me. Anyway, we have two courses, one on agriculture, It's called Trigger Change Innovations in Sustainable Agriculture. And it talks about how to take your ideas in agriculture and make them into startups. So you would have loved our course. It would have been exactly for you. And we're trying to get agriculture schools to teach it, but also engineering schools. Then we have another course on urban. Urban land restoration. So for those of you interested in how to make cities greener, but also how to perhaps start a business or start a community group, we encourage this kind of free thinking for university students. And I'll talk in a few minutes about another online open access course, very exciting, that's especially for young people, but we'll come back to that a little bit later. So thank you again, Mashur. So now we're going to shift over. And next we have Bethany Walder. And it's lovely to have you here. She's executive director of the Society for Ecological Restoration and has written a lot of the standards in the field that we follow very closely on principles of ecological restoration. So tell us a little bit, Bethany, about your educational efforts. and how they help to address the Rio Convention objectives, which is one of the main reasons we're here, right, is on land degradation neutrality, for example. Over to you, Bethany.

Thanks so much, Karen, and thanks for all these great presentations so far. It's been really inspiring. So I will talk briefly and I think that I just want to start by saying Karen you don't know this but I worked in environmental education before I moved into the policy space so I spent two years doing environmental education with middle school and high school students and college students and so I just want to start by saying I operated in this space for a couple of years early in my career and I loved it and it's awesome and so it's really fun to be on this panel um the society for ecological restoration does a lot of different work to put tools in people's hands for doing restoration more effectively. And so I wanna share a few things that we're working on. One of the postcards on your chairs is about a new massive open online course that SER is developing on the foundations of restoration ecology. So when we think about the discussions that we're having here today, a lot of what we're, and at this meeting, a lot of what we're talking about is the practice of ecological restoration or ecosystem restoration. And that practice of ecosystem restoration is underpinned by science. And that's the science of restoration ecology. And it doesn't matter whether you're doing reclamation, rehabilitation, ecosystem restoration, whatever type of restoration you're doing, the science is the same. It's how you apply it at the different categories that you're working in. And so SER is in the middle of developing a massive open online course on the foundations of the science of restoration ecology for universities, for university students. It's an upper level undergraduate course. And why are we doing this? Because very few, it comes back to the Menti question a little bit, very few universities in the world offer the scientific foundations of restoration ecology. There's some countries where you cannot take this class. It doesn't exist at the university level. So how are we gonna do good restoration if we don't understand the science behind restoration? So SER is working to fill that gap as there are many different entities around, including many represented here in this room who are also providing different educational resources on the practice of restoration. So that course is separated into three modules. Each module is about 10 to 12 hours of online learning. And the first module is currently available and it's an introduction to restoration ecology itself, to the science. The second module looks at how restoration ecology applies to individual organisms and populations. And the third looks at things from an ecosystem perspective. There will also be a... formal university level version of that course with an additional 110 hours of learning beyond the 35 hours in the MOOC. So if you wanna get a full three credit course, we encourage you to get engaged with us. One of the other reasons we're offering this course is because SER has a certification program for practitioners. So if you wanna work in this field and you wanna be certified as somebody who understands this work, That certification is based on your knowledge as well as your practice. So how many years of practice do you have and what interdisciplinary knowledge do you have? And what we found globally is that one of the biggest barriers is that people don't have the science of restoration ecology. And so we're offering that class now. I also wanna make you aware that our SER Europe chapter is involved in a program called the Digital Ecological Restoration Toolbox. And through that, they are creating four open access MOOCs, one on dryland restoration, one on peatland restoration, one on ecosystem restoration in urban environments, and one on restoration in agricultural ecosystems. These are ecological restoration practice courses and Karen like what you're doing through trigger change. These are curricula that can be downloaded by instructors, especially at vocational institutions. So where we're teaching people to work in the practice of restoration. And then we also partnered with Conservation International and their ecosystem restoration integrated program and forest duration international on a new course that was offered through the UNDP learning for nature program on assisted natural regeneration practitioner training that just closed. It was an eight week course, I think over 7,000 people registered for it and about 1,500 completed it. And that will be offered annually moving forward. So I think I need to close up, but I think the bottom line with the Rio Conventions and how we think about that is that if the Rio Conventions are really about international cooperation on environment and development, to summarize it very briefly, we can't do that cooperation if we don't have knowledge. And so those of us who are doing this work need to make so that we can collate and coalesce that knowledge from around the world and then redisseminate it out to the people who have it. And I think programs like Trigger Change and like this MOOC and like the work that the people on this panel are doing are the mechanisms we're using to do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Bethany. You're right on time. Thanks for that. And the more the merrier. I mean, there's so much need for education in this field that all we can do is collaborate and move forward on this. So thank you again for your efforts and for being here today. I'll come back to you, though, on a little bit more on some challenges, though, or a little bit more on the Rio Convention. So let's see. So Amanda Abram is the director of Global Schools Program. United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. So tell us a little bit about your educational efforts and how they help to address the Rio Convention objectives. Over to you, Amanda.

Thank you so much, Karen, and thank you so much also to the G20 JLI for this panel. And it's been so great to hear so far from everyone that's on this panel, all of your expertise, all of your work that you have shared. So I'm Amanda. I actually started my career as a teacher in classrooms, so it's so great to see all the students that are here. And I ran Model UN in my classroom and was in charge of Model UN at the school. And this was just about the time where the SDGs were being introduced. and announced. So it really made me think about as a teacher, what type of students do I want to have leaving my classroom at the end of the day and how do I really want to inspire them to take the mission of the SDGs forward. So now I work for the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. We are a large international organization working at the interface of education and policy to really implement the SDGs. And I lead the Global Schools Program. We are a schools network of about 2000 primary and secondary schools across the world and we really support teachers and schools with the training and materials to take the SDGs and through the lens of education for sustainable development and really take this into their school and into their communities. So we support our schools with designing action projects but also looking at this at the systems level at the whole of school. So how can we support school leaders with reorienting their school visions? How can we support them with incorporating education for sustainable development into their staff development plans and their practices, really ensuring that teachers also have the time to implement new instructional approaches, because this is something we see that's also really important and teacher agency to be able to do that. So we have a six month teacher training and leadership program where teachers join to really get trained on education for sustainable development. But not only this from a cognitive lens, but also the pedagogy that's really important and active learning to be able to take this forward in their school communities. And we also have a series of thematic programs on different SDGs that include teacher training, curriculum and resources, which we have in over 14 languages for our school communities around the world. and also different school prizes and mini grants to really ensure that schools and students can take student-led ideas and projects forward. So we have a program on renewable energy, we have one on cultural heritage, and we're also really excited about a new program that we'll be working on with the G20 GLI called Land Action Labs. And the idea of this program is to build on the great work of the G20 GLI, what they're doing in the space of higher education, but also building on the work of the UN decade and everything that has been done so far in ecosystem restoration to provide resources and training for kids to get involved and act for nature. So as part of land action labs, we're going to be developing a MOOC specifically for teachers in our network and beyond. And then we're also going to be developing a series of curriculum toolkits and activities guides for teachers really to think about how they can work with students to act and create ecosystem restoration projects that really ensure that schools become the hubs of land restoration and action. And really trying to build into a global movement in this space across our network and other partners. And there was a lot of thought and consideration that also went into this, making sure we're building on pre-existing existing work, right, and not reinventing the wheel. We did a series of consultations with school leaders, in-person workshop, made sure we were, you know, gathering and building on the best practices that are already out there. And we're also going to be having a series of mini grants for schools as part of the Land Action Labs project as well. Because we know that sometimes these projects for schools and for teachers can be difficult. They can be time intensive and they can be expensive. So really thinking about how we can empower schools to be able to take action with their local communities through these mini grants as well. Because we do see that sometimes teachers often have to fund these projects out of their own salary, which becomes very difficult for them to be able to take action. So this is something we've also thought about in the project design. So hopefully I'll get the chance to speak a little bit more about that as we go forward. But this is kind of how we're taking the Rio Conventions forward to our schools network with the different thematic projects and also working more closely with Thank you.

Let's give a round of applause to Amanda. All this is super exciting, empowering schools to become hubs for land restoration. That's exactly what we're talking about. And I'm looking forward to working with you on your MOOC for teachers and providing more toolkits. That's, I think, that's how we reach mass, right? Thank you so much, Amanda, for explaining that. Then, let's see, Alejandra. Alejandro Ramos Garbes, Senior Research Associate at the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security. You are the key developer, one of the key developers on our open access master's course, Trigger Change, Sustainable Urban Land Restoration, which we launched last year. You want to tell us a little bit more about the course and also how such open educational resources contribute to promoting environmental education. Thank you.

Thank you, Karen, and thank you for the invitation for being here. It's really a pleasure to share this conversation and discussion with all of you. And well, first, I'll briefly talk about our course. This urban land restoration course was a collaborative effort with other universities from different world regions and countries. And what we are sharing with this course is framework a way to look at urban land restoration and how it can be an entry point for different solutions and most importantly for this joint work towards the Rio synergies addressing land restoration climate change and biodiversity loss and um here I would like to mention that this is an open online course as Karen mentioned uh before it's uh Target audiences university professors however anyone can download it check it out see what's interesting about it for you but I think one of the most important things about such courses as this that have a global overview let's say and also that are open access is that contribute to bridging this gap that sometimes precisely as Bethany mentioned the scientific support is not available for everybody. even considering how costly it can be to purchase a journal article or having access to that very specific scientific knowledge, perhaps we don't have that access. So these open online resources provide access to a bit of it because of course they are supported with all this science knowledge and other kinds of knowledge, no? Because also in other parts of the world, sometimes science, the way Europe and the US understand it is different or there are other sources of knowledge and there are practices that continue with that knowledge and it's not precisely that scientific framework we have and that it's dominant and with this I would say this open resources are free for people to adapt according to the needs of each region of each community because also depending on the let's say the purpose of environmental aid is education that each country or each institution may have perhaps it's geared more towards environmental conservation or solving environmental problems or right now towards addressing climate change for example or land restoration we can adapt that according to our own needs our capacities as well the capacities to need also as some other Mongolians Mongolian colleagues mentioned to bridge that knowledge action gap what are the capacities we need so what kind of environmental education we need and what are the resources we can start combining no so I think it's a very nice way to have all of these resources and toolkits so that we can all share this knowledge and perhaps having feedback then and also other regions from the world telling European countries or the US hey we also have this knowledge and these practices that could be included into these other solutions so yeah I think that thank you.

You have a little bit more time, you want to tell us about the upcoming trainers of trainer programs that we're doing that are also open to any educator from around the world in five different regions of the world.

Of course. so continuing with the work of the sustainable urban land registration of course we're going to have this uh training of instructions webinars it's going to last four days well three days and one half day and it's going to be um conducted with our partner universities uh from Kenya Ecuador Indonesia Egypt and Germany and well United Nations University the Institute for environment and human security is going to conduct the Germany or European region training and well you're welcome to subscribe we'll have a newsletter and be posting more information about this and we will also invite other institutions and practitioners to share their experiences and also how they're looking into urban land restoration.

Thanks for adding that. You're still good on time, actually. So you can pick up one of those postcards on the urban course and sign up, and we'll send you information, or sign up for our newsletter at G20.

But let's talk about the land restoration education. That doesn't have instant engagement. It doesn't have instant reward. And a very few of the academic courses would be designed around the fact that this is going to be a long-term return instead of a short-term income. So that's why I felt like there is a lack of incentive or insufficient incentive around, which is being a challenge for this kind of education.

So a lack of return on investment, in a way.

Could be said.

So it needs to be more something that's pushed by governments through reform and saying, we need this for our public good, not just for return on investment. But you know what? We have a growing land restoration economy. And there is more and more need for green skills and for people with green skills. So I think that incentive is actually growing. Shayan, what do you think about some of these challenges? Are you surprised?

It's not-- it's a face thing for us, and then not so surprising. It's a plus more thing. I put my phone is there then I couldn't assess the mentee is here but is a if I if if I fill in the mentee and then I want to really write the words is it just then now is the gaps to is the knowledge into action and then children's is it today's and now they get a huge information through the AIs and so, but is now in all children's cannot be it's managing the real worlds in practical actions. And then if every children is restoring the at least one square meter is a land that will be given to them is a lot chance to is understanding the whole ecosystems as well. Now, now is in our students is it just in they knowing the most of the day knowing they just say is the word the tree planting, but is the main idea is restoring the land. Then it's differences in this kind of knowledge or terminology. It's all this issue to be handled by hand. It's a school, it's a need to be a hub for this real world actions.

So lack of knowledge, yeah, and insufficient knowledge. Let's go to the next question, the last question. How can we overcome those challenges? So don't add funding because that one is too easy. Give me a little bit more diversity in your answers. How can we overcome these challenges? Public policies. There we go. Okay. That's one. What else have we got? By action. Real world examples. Competency-based curricula. Can somebody explain to me what is competency-based curricula? Who said that? Did you, Toon? Tell me what that means.

Competencies is basically a set of knowledge skills, awareness, attitudes around a certain domain that can be applied beyond a specific subject. So that cuts across issues of land restoration, health, entrepreneurship, even engineering. So that's what the competency is. And why I put it there is because I do think, if I may, yeah, because I think that teachers, schools are overburdened with so many important agendas. We are here together for a certain agenda, but there is a health agenda, there's an economic development agenda. So schools have to carry that burden. And I think we need to, we owe it to the children, our kids, that we help schools to think through these issues and to leapfrog and to take the actually think not about now and what we will need in five years but what the kids or our kids what they will need when they are sitting where we are sitting so that's why I put it there.

Basically what are the skills that they will need going out in the workforce And we hope, we think that there's more and more need for students working in land restoration. I'll come back to you, but what do you think, Arunzaya, on the challenges that your school faced? And then how did you overcome those challenges?

Okay, first of all, there are several challenges that we have faced in the past while we were developing our greening projects. The first one is, obvious reason of funding, we had to work with limited amount of sources. Since many of our projects are student led, we could not simply rely on expensive equipment or materials to do our project. So instead of seeing this as limitation, we try to find solutions by using everyday materials. For example, in our egg talks project, which I was the leader of this project, We want to make classroom chalks which are less harmful for our teachers, but we cannot just buy an expensive material to do a chalk. So instead of buying new materials, we used eggshells that would have been thrown away if we didn't use it in that way and reuse it. Another challenge is keeping the students engaged through the whole process of the project. For example, like at the beginning of the project, it is quite relatively easy to catch their attention and make them engage to the activity, but maintaining their interest over a long period of time is a little bit challenging since most of them get tired of it or they just lost interest in it. So we addressed this issue by making the project more student-led and practical. So instead of just learning about environmental education in classrooms and taking notes about it, we actually made those environmental education into more practical practices so that we can plant trees or we can put our hands in soil and feel what is exactly degrading and what's the problem here. And another important challenge was connecting these activities into students' everyday lives. We don't want to like think that about environmental education only when it comes to a special school event because I want that every student have that mindset that it comes with them every time they when they think of their land. And so our school tried to integrate sustainability to different parts of our school life, such as reducing food waste of our cafeteria or taking care of our greenery at school. And looking back, I think the biggest lesson was that all these challenges actually make our projects more meaningful to us. And we learned to be creative with limited amount of sources, we learned to work together, we learned to be us. We may not be able to find solution to restore the 77% of Mongolia's land that is already degraded. We cannot simply, it's true, but we can actually develop a generation of students who understand what is degrading and what's land degradation. And those students can actually find a way to you know, change this thing in the future and are willing to take action. And I think that is how our school has managed all these problems, not by waiting for the perfect opportunities, but instead we started off what we already have and making the most out of it. Thank you.

Let's give a round of applause. She's wonderful. You're fantastic. Thank you so much. I mean, that's real school life, right? Life school, I mean, real life has challenges and shooting. I think that's the way that we learn. So thank you for sharing some of those experiences. So Bayarmaa, what do you think from your perspective, some of the challenges for environmental education in Mongolian schools, or if you want to comment on what you heard from the mentee and some of these challenges and how to overcome them from your perspective?

The implementation of the implementation of the implementation of the implementation of the implementation of the implementation of Learning outcome are learning objectives. In this article, higher group duration is significant. However, not all students who have higher group duration are significantly higher in reading arts. It's not a good thing to be a good thing to be a good thing to be a good thing to do. It's not a good thing to be a good thing to do. It's not foreign nurtured a generation of people our new generation who will be able to develop efficient policies and also start you know making differences on the ground so this is the like you.

Practice-based learning goals need to be included in the curriculum building.

One of the challenges, disintegration across the institutions, funding streams and the project separate financing implementation structures can unintentionally encourage the countries address the interconnected agendas through the parallel rather than integrated approach. And the Mongolia needs to integrate the national environmental education frameworks that connects to objectives through the recommendations. And this framework should align the formal and non-formal vocational education with teachers, development in schools and protected areas, environmental information centers and research institutions, civil society and local communities is in our big challenges. We need to common framework.

Thank you very much. And also, I mean, In Mongolia, are you finding that the government is prioritizing environmental education? Or are you, and I know yesterday there was a session, right, with the Minister of Education. How is that going? I know there was in the previous slide on challenges, it's competing, right? We're competing for budget. How are you, are you winning or are you losing? Or is it you're seeing some increase in awareness and some support from the government in Mongolia? What are you seeing?

Now we are just in coming back and discussing for the environment education, communication education, public awareness strategies. And then last year, this Mongolian is just finalized the NDC. 30 and then national action plan for the biodiversity strategies in all all conventions. It's in all those documents is all they mentioned clearly about the education and so but is a different implemented and then different UN organization for example is running by the secret is supporting and then now it's just in. It's now education and then sector and the environmental sector sitting together now is just actually defining the frameworks and curricula. What age should to be integrated, what knowledge as well. Now it's just in all the researchers and then coming in the back, sit together and then we are working is just in working for the matrix for the knowledge again.

Okay, so there's more collaboration and advocating for environmental education in Mongolia, it sounds like. So that sounds positive. Do we have any questions? This is a time for Q&A. Do we have any questions for any of the panelists? I might walk towards the back of the room, 'cause I know there are two specialists here on the Rio Conventions. And you have several sessions on synergies between the Rio Conventions, don't you? We have our friends Lisa and Yvonne here in the back. Have you thought about environmental education as one of the bridges in synergizing the Rio conventions? Over to you, not to put you on the spot or anything, but-- No, not at all.

Thanks for the question, Karen. Yeah, so we do have quite some sessions that are looking into Rio synergies and how everything is coming together on the land because land is the connector between everything. we do have a component in the work that we're doing, which is a lot on capacity building, but often this focuses more on capacity building in institutions that are already working on the issue of land restoration or in drought and aridity in the case that we're working in. So to be quite frank, no, environmental education is not in there and I think it's often overlooked. So I think it's... really good to see how it's being done and how it's being discussed in this panel and definitely something to pick up for future work.

Well, great. I'm glad that you're here. Thank you for that. Back to you, Bethany. I know you're more in the policy sphere now. And so you're here at the UNCCD COP. Do you also go to the other COPs as well? So how are you bridging this kind of siloed approach that we have?

Thanks for the question. So we typically, SCR typically goes to the biodiversity cop, but not so much to the climate cop. And I think the first thing I would say is that broader than or more narrow than environmental education in particular, and through the work of the UN decade, many of the people working on that work think that restoration itself is a bridge across the three conventions and a really important bridge to link the three conventions. I want to go back to a phrase that was on the slide either of Shine yours or of yours slide deck. One of you had a phrase that said education as land restoration infrastructure. I'm not sure which one of you had that phrase on your slide, but I'm just completely captivated by that concept. And I think I'd like to answer your question with that because we're one of the things we talk about a lot in restoration is the idea that or in environment is that nature should be considered critical infrastructure. Um, and the idea that education as land restoration infrastructure, to me, that's a really fascinating policy concept that we should discuss more because how do you really get governments to think about that? And when you think about that, then does that mean that when you're developing retraining programs for people who no longer have jobs because of AI, that you say, well, we want one of the retraining programs to be on on environmental education so that people can work in this sector and we can start building these programs. So to me, it seems that there's opportunities to think about the objectives of Rio from an educational perspective. That isn't how we typically talk about the SDGs. It's not how we typically talk about the Rio Convention. And in addition to looking at how we bring this education to the generation that's rising up, like your generation, how do we actually bring it to the generation that's losing their jobs and get them to care about the environment? And that's gonna create the political will to get to the objectives to meet the Rio Convention. So it's kind of a circular answer, but that's what I think.

Guess what, we have a MOOC on exactly that topic that we'll be presenting in a minute. But Amanda, do you want to add anything to that, please?

Yeah, I'll just add onto that a little bit. I think environmental education also can really help move students to action and make them really have more, things be more tangible when it comes to the Rio Conventions, 'cause a lot of the teachers we work with or the schools we work with, sometimes they feel like they're doing these type of environmental projects in isolation, they're alone in their classroom, have to advocate for their school leader and they don't feel like they're always connected to something bigger. So environmental education is also really a way for them to make the Rio conventions more tangible and kind of make this connection for young people that they're part of a larger movement. And we try to work really hard on this issue in the Global Schools program. All the teachers that go through our projects have a mentor, so they do feel supported in kind of taking these things to the ground level and in taking action when it comes to the conventions and the themselves.

Thank you for that, Amanda. Anukhanda, do you want to add to that? And then we'll end up with some closing words from the other participants.

Well, I just want to briefly add that I absolutely agree with that. And I think environmental education is a way of making those actions tangible. And also, I believe someone also said that making it tangible for you and that it makes sense because if not it's disconnected at the Institute we also had a project working on climate change in Latin American cities and sometimes for some of the urban communities climate action didn't make sense until they see and they could live what this action could actually bring the immediate benefits for them for example and also during that project it was spoken a lot about how environmental education should be very accessible for people at schools for children and that it makes sense because of course maybe you're a kid and you're planting a tree and it's like you just do it maybe it's fun you learn to do something you carry on tasks and it's fun but when you make sense of that later on it's also an amazing experience to connect that to other like bigger goals and that you're contributing to that for taking of your own environment, your own park, your own country.

I like those words of it's not just schools and teachers working in isolation, but we're all in this together. So 560 trees might not seem like a lot, but if we have every school doing that, can you imagine the impact that that would have? So in closing, and also, Masha, maybe you were there some opportunities that that came to you and that really helped you in promoting your activities. And then maybe you can also just give us maybe some advice also in closing words and give some hope and inspiration. That's a lot, isn't?

It? It seems so. First of all, I want to add to what you just said. According to a recent study published by World Economic Forum, collaborated with Harvard Business Review, Agriculture is probably the least impacted profession by AI interventions. That means this is the only profession that is going to be getting people out of job through AI. That means this is the only profession that can be a potential target for young people who'd be having proper education on land restoration back in the academics. So young people out there, if you are now thinking of investing your time and resources to be educated about how to restore, preserve your land, this is going to be a very good investment for now and for future, because AI is not going to be able to replace you if you have that. Another aspiration I would definitely draw a line here is that recently, even after coming here, I have been seeing that we have been experiencing a tremendous interest around carbon mitigation and carbon credits. And you know what? I was talking to one of our year co-participants here. He's also here, my friend Carlos. He was talking about how his organization is mitigating or reducing carbon through a solution. And I was just trying, I was having hard time to understand the math. that he was doing very well. So that particular sense is a moment of euphoria for all of us, that young people like him, like all of us who are thinking of working in land restoration, we have a bright future. You all have a bright future. And programs like carbon credits can actually encash your knowledge through different solutions or businesses. So this is something going somewhere. Many of the governments we are seeing that they are coming to support policies and deployment around this kind of programs. So the pathways are being opened. The conversations are happening at stages like this. It is now need people like us, people like you, to be on this stage to take forward this kind of journey.

Astra, I think those were excellent closing remarks. There are opportunities in land restoration. There are new markets opening up, and these are not jobs that will be taken away by AI. So panelists, we're going to continue. We're going to launch our MOOC, so stay with us. But I would like to thank all the panelists. Alejandra, you can stay there. So thank you, panelists. I will ask you just to sit in the audience while I ask Apurva to come up to the stage and just to show a last slide. This is exactly what Bethany was talking about also. Can we have the last slide please on our MOOC? Can we have the last slide there? Okay, so This MOOC, Massive Open Online Course, is open to you all. And it's really to give positive stories and talk about careers in land restoration. What are some of the different pathways that some of the professionals that you have heard up here have been on? And how can you get involved in land restoration? So I have with me Purva Bose. She's going to be one of the stars of our MOOC. To say a few words about this MOOC and maybe your role in it. Over to you, Purva. Introduce yourself, please.

Thank you so much, Karen. And what a fantastic panel we had. Thanks so much to all the lovely panelists and the incredible audience that we've had today. My name is Apoorva Bose. I am the strategic communications and partnerships officer for sustainable finance at the Global Landscapes Forum Landscape Alliance. Not long ago, I was actually with the UNCCD and I've been working with Karen for about seven to eight years now. We've spoken a lot in today's conversation about education for land. So I want to focus a little bit on the target audience for this MOOC that we're launching today. And also just to kind of dig a little bit deeper into what do we really want people to take away from this experience of doing the MOOC. Land restoration is often presented as an environmental necessity, which it of course and absolutely is. But if you're 20 years old and you're trying to figure out, what do I really want to study? What kind of job opportunities are out there? What kind of pathways exist which are readily available? Simply being told that planet is in crisis is really not going to cut it. And I think somebody did mention that on the panel today as well. Bethany, I think you or one of you mentioned that. So I think it's very important to show that there is a place for you when it comes to solving it. And that's why young people are the heart of this specific MOOC that we're building. But I think it's also important to recognize that the MOOC does not deliberately focus on people who already understand the language of Rio conventions, or people who are studying environmental sciences, or people who are already working in restoration. What we want to do is we want to reach out to young people who are thinking about, what can I actually do? Or could this become a profession? Can I actually build a business out of this? So we want to reach restoration experts in local governments and NGOs asking, how can restoration become a part of the work that I'm doing? We want to reach the private sector. especially you know people who are talking about what are the kind of opportunities that exist and how can restoration become more profitable for example and we also want to reach the wider public when it comes to you know people who probably don't understand much about land restoration or who's just learning you know a little bit about it but probably wants to understand that why land is important when it comes to the food that you're consuming, the water, health, livelihoods, and future. And I think this is where MOOCs become extremely powerful because a lot of this knowledge that exists today, it's usually, you know, it happens, all these conversations, they happen in silos, they happen in these conferences, they happen in educational institutions, technical institutions. And MOOCs really kind of helps in order to break out of these closed door rooms. All you need is a phone or a laptop and you have access to all of this knowledge that exists out there. But I think access alone is not the vision here. We also want to change the way we talk about restoration. particularly when it comes to young people, because there's a lot of climate anxiety out there, because we're seeing, not just seeing or hearing, we're actually experiencing land degradation, climate change, biodiversity loss, and we're seeing news all around us, which of course creates a lot of climate anxiety. And there's also another kind of anxiety that young people face, which is job insecurity. millions of people are now entering, young people are entering the labor market and every day we're asking questions about where will the jobs actually be, what kind of skills will matter, and how do I build livelihood around it that is changing so quickly. So I think there's really this on one side there are young people who's obviously asking about where are the jobs you know or can this be a marketable job opportunity and then on the other side there are restoration businesses and restoration economy that's emerging and growing as well so that's where I think this MOOC is going to be extremely valuable for young people out there with that I pass the floor to Karen thank you.

I think we'll stop there and a round of applause for Purva Thank you so much for giving the launch to the MOOC. And Mashhur, don't leave. We're going to have a group photo now with everybody who was on stage, please, and all the students. Please come. Please come up. Shine. Come up for the quick group photo, and we'll close there. Let's see. Thank you so much, Aparva. All right. So everybody come up, all the students on stage. Thank you. All right, thank you everybody and wishing you a good afternoon. And there is a reception at the back. Thank you for attending.