10 years of GTPS: lessons learnt to be presented at the next General Assembly

The GTPS is a roundtable comprised of a diverse group of stakeholders that are part of the livestock cattle supply chain, such as the finance sector, academia and producers, among others, with the objective of promoting sustainable livestock in Brazil. In the past 10 years of activities, the group has strengthened and established itself nationally and internationally as a reference on the discussions of sustainable livestock.

The roundtable began its activities in a moment where a lot of attention was being given to the negative impacts of the livestock sector in Brazil. The international context and the discussions that were informed by reports from FAO and Greenpeace pinpointed the livestock sector as the biggest driver for the direct and indirect deforestation of the Amazon.

After this initial period, the discussions among this diverse set of stakeholders on the cattle supply chain continued to advance in Brazil. The GTPS grew larger in reach and the need to go from theory/discussions to practices on the ground was more and more evident. This is when Proforest started to work with GTPS to support this transition period. Proforest’s work is part of the group’s story and between 2012-1026 we played a key role in strengthening the roundtable institutional framework. Our work focused on supporting the revision of the group’s governance structure, strategy development, facilitating the development of the Sustainable Livestock Indicators Guidelines (GIPS, in Portuguese) and structuring pilot projects to implement best practices on the ground.

Coinciding with the GTPS 10-year celebrations, Proforest has captured the lessons learned from developing GTPS as a roundtable via interviews with key players. These lessons learnt will also contribute to the efforts of the Collaboration on Forests and Agriculture (CFA) and will be shared with stakeholders involved in other emerging roundtables initiatives in Argentina, Paraguay and other countries in Latin America. Some of the top lessons learned include the importance of:

• Finding something to keep the collective interest and the group, cohesive using motivations that go beyond market pressure,  
• Developing an agenda that involves all the different links in the value chain,
• Having donors that fund pilots and support the maintenance of the administrative structure of the roundtable
• A well respected leadership that is able to bring all the stakeholders together

Isabella Freire Vitali, Proforest’s Latin America Co-director, will share these and other lessons in the GTPS General Assembly that will take on 17 November in São Paulo.

For more information about the events (in Portuguese) please visit the GTPS event page.