Reporting UNCCD COP17 from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

After more than 20 hours of travel, I finally arrived in the “Land of the Eternal Blue Sky”, Mongolia to cover the 17th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Conference of the Parties (COP17), as a UNCCD and One World Media Fellow and a Youth Ecopreneur (YECO) supported by the G20 Global Land Initiative and the International Trade Centre (ITC).

It is an opportunity I am genuinely excited about. I look forward to engaging with the negotiations, meeting experts and practitioners, and reporting on the people and ideas shaping the global conversation on land degradation, desertification and drought.

I have previously covered several UNFCCC COPs, and this is my second time covering a UNCCD Conference of the Parties. I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to contribute to greater public awareness of why land restoration matters not only for ecosystems, but also for food security, livelihoods, climate resilience and the future of communities around the world.

UNCCD COP17 is part of the broader family of the three Rio Conventions, alongside the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). While the UNFCCC COP is held annually, the UNCCD and CBD COPs take place every two years. This year is particularly significant, with the three conventions being hosted in different countries, bringing distinct but deeply interconnected environmental challenges into focus.

On the opening day, the COP17 Blue Zone registered around 10,000 participants, while the Green Zone was reported to have welcomed more than 15,000 people. These numbers illustrate the scale of interest in land, one of the foundations of human wellbeing and sustainable development.

Yet beyond the formal negotiations, high-level speeches, side events and policy discussions, I am especially interested in the people who are turning ideas into action.During my time in Ulaanbaatar, I am looking to meet extraordinary practitioners, innovators, community leaders, scientists, entrepreneurs, policymakers, Indigenous and local knowledge holders, and young changemakers whose work is creating tangible impact on the ground. I hope to feature some of their stories in my new podcast series. I am particularly interested in people working at the intersection of technology, agriculture, land restoration, climate action, food systems, entrepreneurship and social impact.

I want to hear not only about their successes, but also about the challenges they have encountered, the failures and lessons that shaped their journeys, and the unconventional ideas that are helping them rethink what is possible. As someone from the Global South working at the intersection of technology, agriculture, climate action and social impact, I am particularly keen to bring grassroots experiences and perspectives that are often underrepresented in global policy conversations into wider intergenerational dialogue. So, here is my open invitation:

Who is the one person at COP17 I absolutely should meet?

It could be a farmer transforming their community, a scientist developing a breakthrough solution, an entrepreneur building a restoration business, an Indigenous knowledge holder protecting generations of ecological wisdom, a policymaker challenging conventional thinking, or a young person creating change in ways that deserve to be heard. Sometimes, the most important conversations at a global conference happen far away from the main stage. I am looking forward to finding those conversations in Ulaanbaatar.

Representing the Global South and working through Elzian Agro at the intersection of technology, agriculture, climate action and social impact, I hope to bring grassroots perspectives into these conversations while learning from young ecopreneurs working across different regions and contexts.

I believe the future of land restoration cannot be built through policy alone. It will require the convergence of entrepreneurship, science, technology, finance, Indigenous and local knowledge, community action and, most importantly, the meaningful leadership of young people.

From Ulaanbaatar, I look forward to listening, learning and reporting on the people working to turn that vision into reality.