Global challenges related to poverty, food security, environmental degradation and climate change converge in the rural areas of the tropics. Here is where competition for land and resources is high, poverty and environmental degradation are persistent, and climate change is directly threatening people’s livelihoods.
In recent years, there has been growing recognition that these challenges need to be addressed in an integrated manner, and at a landscape level. The ‘landscape approach’ and ‘climate-smart landscapes’ represent powerful narratives that are quickly being adopted by organisations working at the interface of agriculture, forestry and biodiversity conservation.
Drawing on scientific literature on climate-smart landscapes and landscape approaches and on interviews with experts, this report, published by Tropenbos International, explores the implications of these concepts. It first introduces the climate-smart landscape as one that simultaneously supports climate, development and conservation objectives, and maps different views about the ways in which multiple objectives can be combined in landscape management. The report then examines the challenges of implementing integrated landscape management, with particular reference to the role of innovative landscape governance arrangements. Finally, it reflects on approaches that help assessing the effectiveness of integrated landscape initiatives.
The report underscores the need for systematic methods to understand and assess the performance of landscapes and integrated landscape initiatives. These will increase accountability to financers of landscape projects and better underpin claims of positive development outcomes. Such methods can also be used as tools to generate discussion and negotiate trade-offs, as an integral part of landscape-level initiatives.
