UNORCAC and its Women’s Central Committee organize annual food festivals to reconnect communities with ancestral culinary traditions, promote the use of native crops, and enhance the market appeal of agrobiodiversity-based products. These events feature the preparation and sharing of traditional dishes made with local maize, tubers, herbs, and wild fruits, often linked to the agricultural calendar and Indigenous celebrations like Pawkar Raymi or Koya Raymi.

Farmers, women leaders, and youth co-develop menus, displays, and tasting booths that showcase underutilized crops and recipes. Exhibits often include Chicha de Jora, medicinal teas, and dishes made from mellocos, oca, or mortiño. These festivals are intergenerational, involving local schools, cultural groups, and tourism initiatives, helping to increase awareness, cultural pride, and consumer demand for native products.

By merging culture and commerce, the events position local crops as valuable and healthy, supporting both food sovereignty and livelihoods. They also complement other marketing strategies, such as the community fair La Pachamama Nos Alimenta (Mother Earth feeds us).

A public Environmental Budget and Expenditure database was developed to disclose environmental budgets and expenditures (since 2023). Its intuitive and visual layout allows users to track how much each province has spent on biodiversity each year. This has two main implications.  

 First, by having to thoroughly fill the database, local governments can use it as a tool to better understand how to develop their own environmental budgets and clarifying which categories should be included.  

 Second, the public database promotes accountability and transparency in environmental planning and budgeting, encouraging governments to fulfill their biodiversity finance responsibilities under the NRUF and, ultimately, functioning as an effective monitoring tool.  

Develop a low-carbon lifestyle and carbon reduction verification standard focused on repairing used items. Establish a “low-carbon credits” system to incentivize participation and allow residents to redeem community services. Specifically, residents earn carbon reduction credits by repairing old items, which can then be redeemed with community partners for benefits such as reduced hospital registration fees, and discounted grocery products or repair materials. This approach promotes resident engagement and encourages sustainable living practices.

The clustering of farms is a modality that was adopted for the establishment of new farming activities. A farming cluster is a group of agricultural units adjoined on one site. This was designed to overcome many obstacles that individual farmers face, such as high transportation costs, fluctuating market prices, and a lack of technical capacities to address issues arising during the operation of relatively new agricultural technologies.

The farming clusters in Al Za'atari and Al Serhan municipalities in Al Mafraq Governorate (Northern Jordan), comprise a set of 58 agricultural units adjoined in two sites with a total approximate area of 60,000 m². Such a setup enables selling the products of all farmers at once to large business off-takers, thus reducing transportation costs and allowing all farm to management components to get the same quality of products.

The agricultural units are greenhouses equipped with internal soilless-culture systems and powered by solar energy, while the products are sold through a project spin-off company, named after the project (Smart DESERT Company). All farmers follow the same working steps, and conditions are controlled to the highest extent possible.

Greenhouses are equipped with internal systems for soilless-culture systems that are fully functional and produce various crops. Such a system enables the collection of return irrigation water in basins, providing an opportunity to circulate this water to irrigate the surrounding trees and an open cultivation plot. 
 

The solution includes an online map on #Footprints4ourFuture’s website, through which it is possible to monitor tree planting and maintenance. This innovative tool was developed by a group of young women from the north of Costa Rica. It provides data on the number and location of trees planted, including their species, planting date, and care detail. By enabling contributors to locate their specific tree on the map, the tool enhances transparency and accountability, potentially encouraging adherence to the campaign. It also provides valuable information for the monitoring and evaluation of #Footprints4ourFuture.

Improving the competitiveness of the products and services offered by FEPACOIBA, increasing conservation with local economic development under a value-added scheme based on good practices. 

To achieve this, we work with responsible fishing producers, complying with closed seasons, fishing gear, and size limits. We also train tourism service providers, diversifying services from a perspective of good practices such as experiential fishing, guided tours with historical narratives, and above all, offering our local cuisine that complies with conservation criteria such as size limits and the non-use of vulnerable species.

This consists of influencing public policies and legal frameworks in our country to ensure marine conservation and the sustainable use of resources, strengthening community governance through community participation. To ensure this process, it is very important to participate in public consultations, technical roundtables, workshops, and other activities.