Hello i am a man is a barrel and this is planet s. O. S. The land is one of our best weapons against Climate Change but why are we destroying it Scientists Say humanity is stripping the earth of its ability to sustain life and that extends to the way we produce food but were wasting a lot of it on not feeding all who are hungry we speak to people working to transform our relationship with the land embracing Sustainable Practices and well look at whats coming up at the crop the annual climate talks taking place this year in the trades. We begin with something which quite literally supports us the land we live on its produced much phosphate from it and depend on it for other things such as fuel and clothing it since hegel to the planets carbon cycle drawing Carbon Dioxide down from the atmosphere through plants and trees and storing it in the soil but were destroying it in august the i. P. C. C. Thats the u. N. Body charged with assessing the science on Climate Change found the lands ability to sustain life is declining scientists reinforced what many farmers in vulnerable communities already know that Global Warming is obsessing food systems reducing harvests and intensifying poverty and hunger but our land practices a making the impacts of Climate Change. Change much worse one 3rd of the planets ice free land is degraded due to deforestation agriculture and other land uses which together account for nearly a quarter of Greenhouse Gas emissions the i. P. C. C. Says action taken now to allow alliance regenerate is vital in tackling the Climate Crisis protecting biodiversity and securing our future food and Water Supplies and this is going to mean a radical rethink of our relationship with the land in a moment well look at efforts to regenerate landscapes but 1st ways of living off the land in a Sustainable Way one mechanism is land concessions a system that allows for the private use of public lands david musser traveled to the maya Biosphere Reserve in guatemala the largest Tropical Forest north of the amazon people in the village of carmelita say concessions have enabled them to live off the riches of the forest or also protecting its. Deep inside the rain forest in guatemalas northern potential region edom a town searches the forest floor for riches at a town you know earns a living harvesting shot today a palm frond used in floral arrangements in europe asia and north america the value belief is part of the prize in a unique Conservation Strategy starting in the 1990 s. 9 communities won the right to make a living from the forest as long as they do so sustainably rosa says that her peoples dependence on the forest gives them a powerful incentive to protect it. There have been many changes to our quality of life people make twice as much money harvesting shows a timber as another big allowing us to invest in social programs and infrastructure and we help all the communities by giving them Building Materials for their schools the Community Concessions now generate more than 5000000. 00 a year and have created thousands of jobs in agronomy carpentry and tourism poverty rates have fallen and migration to the United States is virtually unheard of all the while the areas under Community Management boasts near 0 deforestation rates over the past 14 years outside of the concessions there are threats to guatemalas forests clearing land for agriculture has given guatemala one of the highest deforestation rates in the americas during the Easter Holiday in 2015 baileys and farmer set fire to 3 hours of force here along the border thousands of Community Members from guatemala came out to battle the flames stopping the fire from spreading into their Community ForestsNeftali Salazar helps cut and maintain 27 kilometers of firebreaks near the baileys border his community is responsible for patrolling and protecting more than 25000 hectares of forest with little help from authorities so you know. If it wasnt for our concessions to forest here wouldnt exist would be a wasteland. Theyd be villages and pastures and the cattle ranchers would be governing things its because of small groups like us that there are still green areas here with. Roses Community Concession and others are coming up for government renewal over the next few years and with big business i mean their forests rosa and her neighbors are worried empowered locals have kept the forests intact but convincing politicians you the same has not been easy david mercer in one of mahlers maya Biosphere Reserve for planet s. O. S. So we need to protect the lands but we also have to eat and the worlds population is growing by more than 200000 people every day the global footprint at work says were exceeding our planets budgets consuming its resources as if we had 1. 75 to live on and the Food Industry is a major culprit agriculture is responsible for around 75 percent of tropical deforestation worldwide it uses 70 percent of the planets fresh Water Supplies 9 times the amount of much in fertilizer is applied today compared to the 1960 s. And this produces nitric oxide a potent Greenhouse Gas and the same fertilizer produces toxic runoff which kills wildlife and reduces the lands ability to absorb carbon and then theres all the methane from record numbers of livestock other elements such as transportation and storage on the global food system accounts for nearly 40 percent of Greenhouse Gas emissions so how do we feed everyone in a way that sustains the land and protects ecosystems i mean hey were travel to wales in the u. K. Where some farmers a working on ways to do just that. For farmers looking after the land whatever the weather is a lifetime commitment none more so than at the holden family farm in the welsh hills where they take a holistic approach to producing food no chemicals have been used on the pomp of 46 years and theyve sown herbs into the pasture land to build a copper back to the soil to help offset some of the methane produced by the cows. Thats chicory and in here as well theres Yarrow Burnette and other herbal plants which the cows loved also they have deep roots and they help rian live in the soil and build the organic carbon bike which we need to have to do to address Climate Change. Patrick is a pioneer of the movement to produce food more sustainably he wants governments to support and vironment friendly farming methods while taxing those that pollute and hes encouraging consumers to pay more attention to how the food on the table is produced a lot of farmers doubt whether the system could work and feed enough people but heres a which is demonstrating that this is the future the i. P. C. C. The uns body on Climate Change says Global Warming is already upset in food systems decreasing harvests an increasing Food Insecurity but it says poor land practices a contributing to 23 percent of global Greenhouse Gas emissions come from bombing agriculture and other land uses the trend towards more Sustainable Farming is something we can afford not to undertake and we need to act immediately because we probably have only 10 years left in making these changes. Irreversible Climate Change. Looking after the soil and seeing its potential for combating Climate Change is at the heart of what happens a few kilometers away blind camel and contributes to this organic balm success. Being created. For materials like grass. And. It is biologically active with millions of microorganisms working to fill the life of the foil here they aim to be Carbon Neutral but plan to be carbon negative and everything thats grown goes into the local markets. By managing the farmlands of the world you can bring carbon into a situation where it is stable within the saw and that will help the future not only for Climate Change per se but also for Food Production farming wherever in the world has always been tough but a changing climate makes it even more challenging but some farmers believe the answer lies in overhauling current industrial rights farming techniques and embracing practices that both draw from and nurture the land emma he would aljazeera in the west of wales but plan it s. O. S. Well there are many different views on how to improve the global food system as opposed protect the planet and ensure everyone gets enough to eat for one take on it im joined by author and environmental activist George Monbiot was also a columnist with the Guardian Newspaper george fantastic to have you on planet s. O. S. Theres a lot to change in our feeling system where to start. The 1st place i would start is really switching away as much as possible from a meat based diet to a plant based diet livestock use roughly 3 quarters of all the Agricultural Land that we use today and yet they produce just 18 percent of our calories its a really profligate use of land it is the biggest driver of habitat loss and of the loss of wildlife farming and fishing r. And livestock farming in particular because of its incredible land use and that represents a massive lost opportunity to protect our living world and also to absorb carbon which we could do if that landrys used instead to revert to nature and become wild ecosystems once more and what about the people here depend on light stuff well of course there are many people around the world who are subsistence pastoralists and the last thing i want to do is to take away their livelihood or say they shouldnt be doing what theyre doing what were talking about here i think is commercial livestock production for sale into Commodity Markets and the argument being made or almost unanimously by food writers and by Celebrity Chefs and by t. V. Personalities is we should be switching away from intensive b. Production to free range pasture fed meat that argument is completely wrong in environmental terms its the worst possible thing you could be doing so what im saying is that thats not where the choice should lie the choice should lie between meat or not to meet and the choice we should make is not me now of course there are commercial produces who would see themselves having to change their profession and im saying you know lets make sure that we support them in that change but no more than people who want to see. Green transition have a. Moral duty to justify the coal industry do people like me who want to see that transition take place in agriculture have a moral duty to justify livestock production what we should justify is helping people to get out of it and into other professions thank you very much george were going to have to end it there thank you very much amanda or there are many Resources Available to help us understand the impact we have on our planets heres one from the Global Footprints Network which provides analysis and tools to encourage us to live sustainably this footprint calculator helps us measure our own ecological footprint and consider solutions so we can trade more lightly on the earth where the combined human footprint is heaviest londra generation can help reduce the impacts more than 500000000 people live in areas affected by desert vacation linked to Climate Change 3 years ago aljazeera visited the great green wall and ambitious project to restore land from east to west africa by planting trees nicholas and barr to bob in senegal to see whether or not its been successful. The fight against Climate Change starts here on the edges of the Sahara Desert villages from planting trees they want to save their homes and farmland from the expanding deserts. For this forest ranger theres a sense of looming catastrophe. So we are in a situation of grave danger if we dont plant trees we wont get the range they need to cultivate it already rains have dropped we need water to feed animals and grow food otherwise people will move. And they have already started across the cattle herders are on the move there mainly from the ethnic group and are looking for a more temperate climate to feed their animals. Thats like the conflict thats fueled by armed groups such as. In the slum it might grab thousands of people have been killed in the sahara in the fighting in the past year alone but not in senegal such a good job he believes thats because of this Tree Planting project in 2007 senegal was among 11 african countries that pledged to plant trees in what they called a great green wall from the east to the west of the continent but 10 years on most of the countries involved have dropped out because many of the trees have been killed by drought termites and increasingly inhospitable climate temperatures are rising in rainfall dropping. Experts say that if all the trees that were planted for the last 40 years had survived then this would look like the amazon forest well instead it looks more like this the aim of the program is no longer to build the great green wall because the desert is moving forward but rather to find a solution so that the communities here can adapt to the changing climate for senegal this green wall is a long Term Investment for future generations. Acacias are being planted as they can withstand the harsh conditions and thrive every part of the tree can be used achieving success now depends on finding species of trees that can be adapted to this environment look at this moring a tree its got Health Benefits if you give this to children it will protect them and they wont get built. Polluting countries are investing in the green wall to offset their Carbon Emissions under climate marketing schemes but by 2050 the Global Temperatures is predicted to rise by 2 degrees the desert is rapidly expanding and the villagers here say theyre racing against time to save their homes and strengthen the front line in the fight against Climate ChangeNicholas Hawke senegal planet and so s. A reminder of how hard it can be to maintain Solutions Even when theyre up and running im joined now by mohamed fall a veteran correspondent here at how dizzy or who grew up in mauritania just north of santa go mohammed youve covered the causes on the effects of deserts vacation and drought in the region and you come from a family of farmers this gives you a really unique perspective on whats going on since the mid sixtys when i was really a child it began to change drastically a little rain and and population moving from their villages towards the big cities because there was no help with farming they couldnt sustain the way of life they were used to you know continue over the centuries as was a huge disruption very difficult and painful. Phase of their life and now most of those villages are almost empty of their population its a very sad scene and one of the things that we know we need to do if were going to combat Climate Change and land degradation which of course are very interlinked is to actually really rethink our relationship with the land and to regenerate it but how can that be done if people are all in the cities and the land is effectively been left it really needs a big plan not just the big words that we hear you know from n. G. O. S and governments and so on and it needs real and sustainable plan to convince people to go back to their villages and also really. Help them not just talk about it but do it many wrong policies were adopted and those have to be corrected this idea of instead of helping people get water pumped from under the soil and you know till the land and farm it again with new means a new technologies the government sent n. G. O. S resources to handouts so those handouts russians monthly rations of we sugar and things like that you know made people rely on our side to help and they forgot not only forgot but also the you know just decided to abandon the way of life which they sustain for hundreds of years and tell me about your own story you have a farm is that right exactly i started this 10 years ago because i found out that what the whatever amount of you know talking you do to your people they will not listen to it you have to to lead by example so i relied on my own means and i started the farm i dug bore holes. And also to traditional well and out of those 5 you know i get enough water for what im doing so far i rely on solar power i continue to you know refuse to use any industrial fertilizers or insecticides so now its completely organic so far its been absolutely fascinating to talk to mohammed thank you very much. Well thousands of people are heading to spains capital madrid for cope 25. 00 th