Fertile drylands: the merits of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration

Local communities in the southwestern coastal region of Bangladesh—together with an international consortium including Uttaran, CEGIS, and Both ENDS—have presented a community-led plan to confront climate change and accelerating sea-level rise through nature-based adaptation. The People’s Plan for Upscaling Ecosystem-Based Adaptation outlines a scalable strategy rooted in local ownership and generations of lived experience. At its centre is Community-Based Tidal River Management (CBTRM), a proven approach that reduces waterlogging, raises land elevation, and restores ecological balance by working with natural tidal and sediment dynamics.

Both ENDS is present at COP30 to advocate for genuine access to climate finance for locally led, gender-just climate solutions and the mechanisms that facilitate this, including those for farmer-led restoration. Furthermore, the organisation participates to ensure the crucial connection between the climate negotiations and the trade and investment frameworks that shape them.

Learn more about the Both ENDS team at COP30 below, and find all the activities and side-events in which Both ENDS will participate.

Both ENDS is present at COP30 to advocate for genuine access to climate finance for locally led, gender-just climate solutions, and for the mechanisms that make these possible, including those supporting farmer-led restoration. The organisation also engages to highlight the crucial connection between climate negotiations and the trade and investment frameworks that shape them.

Below is an overview of the Both ENDS team at COP30 and a detailed look at the activities and side-events in which Both ENDS will participate.

Recently, many newspapers have written about Brussels’ rush to finalize the trade agreement between the EU and the South American Mercosur countries. According to the European Commission, national parliaments do not need to approve it because the trade part and the “political” part have been separated. This “splitting” means that the trade part can be approved as an EU-only decision by the European Council and the European Parliament, while national parliaments are sidelined and the political-cooperation part is postponed. Both ENDS and its partners are deeply concerned and are calling on the Dutch government to vote against this outdated agreement.

Both ENDS warns that the current debate on “simplification” of EU environmental law must not become an excuse to weaken or postpone urgently needed safeguards. In earlier contributions to the drafting of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), Both ENDS relayed the voices of local and Indigenous forest-dependent peoples, who consistently urged the EU to take responsibility for the massive deforestation linked to European imports. They underlined how this deforestation destroys biodiversity, undermines climate stability, and erodes their rights, livelihoods and cultures.

The Women Environmental Programme Burkina Faso (WEP BF or WEP) is leading the way in gender-just climate solutions, putting the power of advocacy directly into the hands of women farmers. “In Burkina Faso, women play a crucial role in food production and natural resource management, yet they continue to face systemic barriers to land ownership,” explains a WEP team member. “Despite legal provisions, deeply ingrained customary norms remain dominant, restricting women’s access to land as user rights only, which need to be mediated through male family members.” Without secure access to land, they face significant obstacles in sustaining their agricultural activities, improving local food security, and fully participating in their communities.

This FCDO-supported project, part of the GAGGA programme, brought together 6 women-led community-based organisations from around the world to explore how they navigate the combined challenges of climate change, gender inequality, and conflict. Through a Feminist Participatory Action Research approach, the organisations documented strategies ranging from land rights advocacy to climate-resilient agriculture, highlighting how extractive industries, militarisation, and patriarchal systems drive exclusion and insecurity. Their findings are now informing donors and policymakers on the need to support grassroots women’s leadership. In the following interview, the project lead shares more about the research, key insights, and its broader impact.