Landscape level approaches – context, evolution and principles

Background paper for the Wageningen International course on MSD in Kumasi, 2008

Introduction

Landscape-level approaches are increasingly recognised as integrated planning approaches for natural resources management that link grass-roots and community based initiatives with the wider national or regional perspectives of natural resource management. They represent a variety of innovative approaches that attempt to merge ecosystem thinking with multi-stakeholder processes for promotion of more equitable and sustainable development and good natural resources governance.

The landscape concept offers a framework for analysing causal connections between processes at different locations and at different institutional levels. As a planning approach, it seeks to link site-level action, at farm or forest level to the broader landscape or ecosystem level and as such promotes more holistic interventions. It has close affinities with strategic planning approaches developed by particular sectors e.g. watershed planning; district strategic planning; forest restoration planning; protected area planning; and ecosystem planning approaches. Building on the successes and failures of these, it provides a more robust cross-sectoral and integrated approach that can be applied to achieve important poverty and sustainability goals.

Background

Thinking in terms of landscapes (as a unit of analysis or as a planning and management concept) is relatively new. On the other hand the landscape approach is very much linked to the thinking of holistic management of natural resources and as such linked to the Ecosystem Approach. Sayer and Maginnis (2005) argue that differentiating between ecosystem management, ecosystem approaches and landscape approaches is largely a question of semantics.

The emergence of the Ecosystem Approach (EA) and the broadened concept of Sustainable Forestry Management (SFM) must be seen within the context of a trend towards greater societal concerns about (sustainable) natural resources management in the last decades. The trend is supported by various international conventions such as the (United Nations) Convention on Biological Diversity – CBD; Convention to Combat Desertification and land degradation – CCD; and the Framework Convention on Climate Change - FCCC; the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). A variety of terms has been used to describe these integrated approaches (Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs); integrated river basin management; the Man And Biosphere concept (MAB), just to mention a few).

The ecosystem approach

During the 1990s the ecosystem approach emerged as “a strategy for the management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way” (Smith and Maltby 2003). The ecosystem approach has become widely accepted and in May 2000 it was endorsed by the fifth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity as an approach to implement the Convention.

The ecosystem approach recognises sustainable use, accepts that change is inevitable, argues that objectives are socially constructed and subject to multiple interests and includes concerns with devolved management. Thus, in many ways it is consistent with poverty reduction and conservation. The principles of the ecosystem approach are:

1. The objectives of management of land, water and living resources are a matter of societal choice.

2. Management should be decentralised to the lowest appropriate level.

3. Ecosystem managers should consider the effects (actual or potential) of their activities on adjacent and other ecosystems.

4. Recognising potential gains from management, there is usually a need to understand and manage the ecosystem in an economic context. Any such ecosystem-management programme should:

a) Reduce those market distortions that adversely affect biological diversity;

b) Align incentives to promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable use; and

c) Internalise costs and benefits in the given ecosystem to the extent feasible.

5. Conservation of ecosystem structure and functioning, in order to maintain ecosystem services, should be a priority target of the ecosystem approach.

6. Ecosystems must be managed within the limits of their functioning.

7. The ecosystem approach should be undertaken at the appropriate spatial and temporal scales.

8. Recognising the varying temporal scales and lag-effects that characterise ecosystem processes, objectives for ecosystem management should be set for the long term.

9. Management must recognise that change is inevitable.

10. The ecosystem approach should seek the appropriate balance between, and integration of, conservation and use of biological diversity.

11. The ecosystem approach should consider all forms of relevant information, including scientific and indigenous and local knowledge, innovations and practices.

12. The ecosystem approach should involve all relevant sectors of society and scientific disciplines.

Shepherd (2004) has developed a five-step approach to implementing the ecosystem approach in the field. The twelve principles are clustered “into a logical sequence which encourages discussion, planning and a step-by-step approach”. This guide to implementation stresses the importance of adaptive management as a way to deal with “unforeseen negative impacts” and “unforeseen issues.” These are the five steps:

Step A: Determining the main stakeholders, defining the ecosystem area, and developing the relationship between them;

Step B: Characterising the structure and function of the ecosystem, and setting in place mechanisms to manage and monitor it;

Step C: Identifying the important economic issues that will affect the ecosystem and its inhabitants;

Step D: Determining the likely impact of the ecosystem on adjacent ecosystems; and

Step E: Deciding on long-term goals, and flexible ways of reaching them.

Source: Fisher et al (2005)

Parallel to trends towards integrating different forms of management of a single area of land, there has been strong interest in dealing with issues at a larger spatial scale. There is emerging recognition that the different components of landscape mosaics combine to form a dynamic whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. Interest groups such as conservationists are attempting to use the landscape as unit of analysis. Other groups are attempting to manage large areas of land in an integrated way to optimise the multiple functions of different components of landscapes (Sayer and Maginnis, 2005).

What is also recognised is that issues affecting the management of natural resources are frequently not site-specific. The root causes of biodiversity loss and poverty for example are usually not physical but rather political, social or economic, and these underlying causes occur at a variety of scales. Addressing these issues requires action at different scales and locations.

The landscape level approach is also a response to the failing attempt in community (forestry) natural resources management to cope with environmental problems and opportunities beyond the community sphere of influence as well as dealing with the problem how to upscale locally accepted management decisions. The debate on the appropriate level of planning and natural resources management is further prompted by the recent surge in thinking about differentiating various environmental functions, valuation of functions and exploring innovative ways of encouraging the end-user of these environmental function (or its marketable product such as clean air, clean river water, biodiversity, landscape beauty) to compensate the manager (or producer) of that function. Production, management and marketability of environmental functions are predominantly large-scale, embedded in complex economic, cultural and ecological interactions and are bound by multi stakeholder processes and as such in most cases beyond the scope of a community level.

Accordingly, it is argued that it is essential to adopt a more integrated, landscape perspective to land use management. A landscape perspective recognizes that people and the ecosystem are part of the same system, with the components of the system being interconnected. What happens in one part of the ecosystem will affect other parts of the ecosystem. It also recognizes that ecosystems are dynamic, changing over space and time and, therefore, an adaptive approach to land use management is essential. Furthermore, by acknowledging the cultural, economic and ecological value of ecosystem services, and not just those that are currently traded, a landscape perspective seeks to enhance human well-being and long-term ecological integrity.

The landscape concept

A landscape can be defined as “a contiguous area, intermediate in size between an eco-region and a site with a specific set of ecological, cultural and socioeconomic characteristics distinct from its neighbours”. However, in practice all landscapes are social constructs and the definition of a landscape lies largely in the eye of the beholder (Maginnis et al., 2004).

Phillips (in Brown et al, 2005) sees a landscape as a meeting ground between:

- Nature and people – and how these have interacted to create a distinct place;

- Past and present – and how therefore landscape provides a record of our natural and cultural history;

- Tangible and intangible values – and how these come together in the landscape to give us a sense of identity.

Herein lie both the strength and the weakness of the idea of landscape. The strength of landscape is that it embodies many facets and appeals to us in all sorts of ways. Its weakness is that – just because it is a meeting ground – no single profession owns it or can champion it unaided: the proper understanding of landscape calls for contributions from many disciplines. Furthermore landscape is a cultural construct and often culturally contested: different groups will see it differently, and ideas about it are not constant but change over time. Thus an Australian aboriginal will read quite different things into the outback landscape than a farmer of European origin. Finally, because many of the values of landscape cannot be quantified, they are open to challenge in a world where what cannot be measured is at risk.

Landscapes consist of a range of separate sites with various land uses and functions. The underlying idea is that the landscape as a whole is more than the sum of its parts. Boundaries are set arbitrarily, defined by people for a particular purpose. In practice therefore one can think of superimposed landscapes with different boundaries, defined by different people for different purposes. The boundaries will always remain “fuzzy” (Fisher et al, 2005).

An example of a landscape might be an area with a number of different land uses, such as scattered forest patches, a larger area of forest which functions as a wildlife refuge, private farming areas, grazing lands used by migratory pastoralists and wetlands used by local fishers. Recognising the physical characteristics of the terrain is one thing, although defining the boundaries between it and similar adjoining areas may be difficult. Superimposed on the physical landscape are several social categories. There are several villages with discreet but informal boundaries within the landscape. All of the area falls within a single administrative (local government) unit, but it comprises only a part of the unit and administrative headquarters are located outside. The grazing land is used seasonally by pastoralists, whose grazing area includes separate areas outside the landscape. The boundaries are permeable; both people and wild animals move beyond them.

Source: Fisher, Maginnis et al (2005)

The landscape concept is highly relevant to attempts to deal with poverty reduction and conservation objectives. Experience learns that the poor aim for multiple use (risk aversion) when securing income and livelihoods from the use of natural resources. Although it may be difficult to achieve multiple use in a sustainable way at the site level, the landscape level will often provide more opportunities. Different parts of the landscape can be used to achieve different results. Exploring the landscape allows trade-offs to be made. In a multi-stakeholder setting this may be done in an equitable manner.

Multiple scales (also called “nested landscapes”) are not just a matter of ever-widening geographical scales, but also include an institutional and political landscape which can be thought of as a vertical dimension. In other words, we need to think both of multiple institutional levels and multiple geographical scales. The case of the Mekong Wetlands Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use Programme (see box below) illustrates the ways in which poverty and conservation at site levels are affected by institutional factors such as policy. In this case, policy focuses on food security through rice production, whereas human livelihoods depend substantially on fisheries associated with wetlands.

Understanding poverty in rural Lao PDR

Although there are many categories of poverty in Lao PDR, with different causes and characteristics, officially poverty is largely defined in terms of rice deficit. An important rural development strategy, therefore, is to increase rice production. This is done through cultivating new lowland areas, particularly wetlands and floodplains, promoting irrigation of a second crop and to some extent promoting intensification of production.

However, rice deficit is not always the same as nutritional deficit. Although cultivation of rice is a fundamental economic and livelihood activity in Lao PDR, most rural people depend on a wide range of natural goods, particularly wild resources available from common property wetlands, rivers and forests. These wild resources often provide important nutrition that cannot be provided by rice alone. While rice deficits are common in many parts of Lao PDR, the ability to cope with these deficits and maintain reasonable nutritional status depends on being able to harvest these wild resources.

In order to address these issues, IUCN, in partnership with FAO and the Living Aquatic Resources Research Centre (LARReC) in Lao PDR, undertook a participatory assessment of the role and nutritional value of aquatic resources in rural livelihoods (Meusch et al. 2003). The assessment focused on Attapeu, one of the poorest provinces in Lao PDR.

While there is a need to improve rice production and cultivation, the expansion of rice cultivation into wetland and floodplain areas may affect the wild fishery. This cost has not been considered. Growing evidence now indicates that the widely diverse aquatic resources available in these wetland areas — including fish, snails, molluscs, crabs, frogs, and plants harvested from floodplains, seasonal ponds and streams, as well as rice fields — provide the main source of animal protein in diets that otherwise lack protein. In Attapeu, harvesting aquatic resources is the main coping strategy for periods of rice deficit. There are no coping strategies for shortages of aquatic resources. Any loss of this wild resource will therefore have a significant impact on the nutritional status of local people, one which could not be replaced solely through increased rice production.

Meusch et al. (2003 p.19) note that, “[d]iversity is a key strategy for coping with the seasonal nature of rice production and other crops and varying availability of water resources.” Rice production and aquatic resource harvesting are necessary and inseparable components of livelihood strategies that need to be able to adapt to dramatic seasonal changes. Improved management of wild aquatic resources — rather than concentrating on rice production alone — has the potential to greatly improve nutritional status, and thus contribute to diverse, adaptable livelihood strategies. The kind of strategies that IUCN is promoting can make a significant contribution to both poverty reduction and conservation.