It will take extraordinary action by ordinary people to stave off the worst impacts of global heating

It was thirsty work recently in Sharm El Sheikh, all of us who were present agreed on that. When the UN Climate Conference, CoP 27, finally concluded, debate continued to rage on about how full the metaphoric glass is.

COP27 was to be the Climate Conference about implementation, and the words “action” and “implementation” featured in most speeches, on pavilions and in the corridors. For a planet parched for climate action, some progress was made: forests were once again prominent, agriculture and soils made some ground, and, for the first time in 30 years of climate talks, rich countries agreed to compensate the poorest nations for the inevitable suffering they will endure from climate change through a loss and damage fund. But this fund is presently an empty glass waiting to be filled.

It was encouraging to see the progress made on forests, with the creation of the Forest and Climate Leaders Partnership of government, business and community leaders to implement commitments by 140 nations to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. Negotiators also reiterated their call for countries to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation and promote sustainable forest management.

Since 2017, countries participating in a process known as the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture have emphasized the importance of addressing these challenges by improving soil health and fertility; combining forest, cropland and pasture in integrated agroforestry landscapes; managing livestock sustainably; and reducing waste and loss in the food production chain. At COP27, countries renewed their commitment to these principles and agreed to take further steps to implement them. At CIFOR-ICRAF, we do this by bringing climate, agriculture and forest research down to earth, by promoting agroecological approaches, soil health, and tree species diversity, among others.

At the industrial scale, the Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade (FACT) Dialogue brings together producers and consumers of global commodity crops such as soy, palm oil, beef and timber, along with representatives of Indigenous Peoples and other groups, in an effort to reduce impacts on forests.

Another hopeful sign is the new and potentially transformative coalition established by Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which together account for half the world’s primary tropical forests. This effort shows that developing countries are confident about taking ownership and leadership of an international initiative.

COP27 ended with the Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Plan, which calls the world to put climate commitments into action – encouraging but far from enough.

We need to think beyond implementation to transformation. We need to see climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification and the many health and demographic crises that challenge humanity and the world we know as a call for renewal. We need to accept our global predicament as an opportunity for a step change – not continue to behave as if dealing with climate change is a zero sum game, where incrementalism is the dominant narrative.

A culture of stewardship

What will it take to truly grasp this opportunity for transformation? It will take courage, collective action and, yes, some sacrifice. We need not go so far as the example set nearly 300 years ago for us by one courageous woman in the small village of Jehnad in the kingdom of Marwar, India. But we can certainly be inspired by it.

On 10 or 11 September 1730, Amrita Devi did something entirely unremarkable – but totally Earth shattering: she hugged a tree, putting her body between it and a woodcutter’s axe. She died that day protecting the Khejri (Prosopis cineraria) trees from the axes of King Abhay Singh’s men, along with 362 of her fellow villagers. They were perhaps the world’s first tree huggers, and their actions had an impact: Abhay Singh, in remorse, banned all felling of green trees in his kingdom.

In the wake of COP27 and on the eve of the UN Biodiversity Conference, to be held 7–19 December in Montreal, the determination and actions of Amrita Devi and her fellow villagers stand as an example to all of us.

Like them, we must start seeing land and nature as a community to which we belong, rather than as commodities to exploit. We must nurture interconnected landscapes of forests, crops and wetlands. And we must stand with Indigenous Peoples, farmers, fishers and local communities, who for generations have been stewards of the territories – where they maintain 36.2% of the planet’s forests and four-fifths of its biodiversity, including traditional seed and crop varieties.

Despite their widely recognized role in protecting ecosystems and their growing presence at international negotiating sessions, many of these groups still lack secure tree, land and forest tenure, and more than 1,700 people have been murdered in the past decade for defending their rights to their territories.

Helping them avoid the worst impacts of climate change will require recognition of their traditional knowledge and their rights but also helping them gain the knowledge, skills and resources to make their forests and farms more resilient to climate shocks. At CIFOR-ICRAF, we and our partners have shown over and over again across very different landscapes, and as scales as varied as 1 million hectares to a single household, that everyone wins when the stewards of land and nature win. For example, Regreening Africa is is restoring ecosystems in 8 countries and improving the resilience of 500,000 households across sub-Saharan Africa.

Translating these principles into sustained action will take a transformation of food-systems and agriculture to reduce the estimated one-third of greenhouse gases it emits, support a shift towards adaptation in the food system, and simultaneously address the food, environment and income insecurity crises.

The seeds of a sustainable, equitable and resilient food supply lie in the soil and the hands of the world’s smallholder farmers, who often produce highly nutritious but less well-known ‘orphan crops’. They know what the villagers of Jehnad also knew: that climate, food, forests, soils, energy and the economy are inextricably intertwined. Yet the burden of our failure to address the climate crisis falls most heavily on the poorest and most vulnerable.

As Amrita Devi and her neighbours demonstrated, it will take the collective efforts of ordinary people doing extraordinary things to bring about the changes in governance, lifestyles, energy use, food systems and economics needed to stem rising global temperatures and climate crises.

Their call to duty of care, to stewardship, was enshrined in the edicts of their Bishnoi religion, which calls for love and mercy towards all living things, especially trees. Stewardship is best understood as the deliberate and informed combination of solicitude, foresight and skill – a marriage of practice and ethics – that has tangible impacts in landscapes. Like the Bishnoi we must seek to embed stewardship within culture to ensure that a duty of care is practiced.

So how do we do this – how do we step back from the over-commodification of nature? Given that our predominant culture is codified in the economy, it is to the economy that we must turn for a global step change towards adopting stewardship as our norm.

COP27 drew significantly more private companies than have been seen at previous climate conferences. And while some are making substantive efforts at transformation, others were lobbying for measures that responded to their business interests – including the removal of some environmental regulations that protect forests and people.

Still, their presence and bold statements about climate commitments and private finance created stronger interest and higher hope for many countries. The challenge is that, for many private-sector commitments, there is a lack of transparency on fulfilment. Mechanisms are needed for monitoring these commitments and ensuring accountability.

Movements supporting regenerative agriculture, agroforestry, sustainable forest management, natural farming and agroecology, buoyed by attention to gender, ethnic and age equity, are examples of efforts to integrate stewardship practices at forest, farm and community levels – and we can build on them.

Tools for transformation

At the same time, we need tools that facilitate an economic transition to stewardship, including certification schemes, payment for ecosystem services, debt for nature swaps and the recognition of rights and support to agency. To pay for a transition to a stewardship economy, we could begin by reforming and repurposing subsidies shown to have perverse impacts on natural capital, such as those for fertilizers or pesticides.

We must establish innovative finance, investment, and performance management arrangements capable of reaching through complex social organizations and networks in time for the kinds of transformative impacts we need. One of those impacts must focus on women’s rights, agency and empowerment. This was highlighted at COP27 by Egyptian Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad, who noted during the opening plenary of the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) climate conference that although women were underrepresented in climate negotiations and are not always included equitably in projects to address climate change in their countries, nevertheless they have proven to be leaders in nurturing nature and innovating on their farms. Recognition of this role must become a pillar of any sustainable transformation towards a climate-resilient future. CIFOR-ICRAF has worked to develop strategies for greater inclusion of women in agricultural research and by supporting initiatives like AWARD, as part of its broader efforts towards to the creation of equitable, inclusive and sustainable forest, tree and agroforestry landscapes.

It is time we truly recognize that nature is more than products; it also provides immeasurable services. People are not just producers; we are also carers. And we must finally accept that it is up to all of us to slake the thirst for transformation that our planet is crying out for.