On 16th January, the members of SHERPA EU MAP met in Brussels (Belgium) to discuss SHERPA’s recommendations for rural areas on climate change and land use, and on resilient and sustainable value chains. Representatives from European institutions, as well as societal and academic actors at European level attended the meeting and further developed SHERPA’s recommendations on the two topics.
Climate change and land use
Land use is crucial to reduce green gas house emissions and hence tackle climate change. For instance, installation of wind turbines and solar panels can play a role in climate mitigation, as well as afforestation and sustainable agricultural practices can contribute to carbon sequestration.
David Miller from the James Hutton Institute has therefore presented the draft of SHERPA Position Paper with respect of climate change and land use. This Position Paper summarizes and develops the work done by SHERPA Multi-Actor Platforms (MAPs) on the same topic. As highlighted by Mr Miller, many rural areas across Europe are severely affected by climate change and SHERPA MAP Position Papers exemplify this. An example of these was presented by Søren Møller who illustrated how climate change and land use are strictly correlated and their impacts on rural areas of the Danish MAP in SHERPA.
Resilient and sustainable value chains
Gerald Schwarz, Thünen-Institut, presented the draft version of SHERPA Position Paper on resilient and sustainable value chains in rural areas. This Paper also built on the results of discussions of SHERPA MAPs on the same topic.
In this regard, Monica Tudor, monitor of the three Romanian MAPs in SHERPA underlined the difficulties of Romanian rural areas and small land holders to obtain a fair income for their work along the entire agri-food value chain as this is mostly dominated by multinational companies.
What’s next?
Members of the SHERPA EU MAP discussed the draft versions of the two Position Papers and further elaborated their recommendations on policy and research. Also, the two Position Papers will be used as food for discussion during the SHERPA Annual Conference in Montpellier on 31 January and 1 February. All these inputs will be used by SHERPA partners to finalise these Position Papers in the coming month.
Stay tuned!
Published by Carla Lostrangio