From Concept to Action: Comparing experiences and lessons learned from 191 Integrated Landscape Initiatives in Latin America and AfricaJeffrey C. Milder, Abigail K. Hart, Natalia Estrada-Carmona, Fabrice A.J. DeClerck, Celia A. Harvey, Philip Dobie, Joshua Minai, Christi ZaleskiFebruary 2014

The “LPFN”

landscapes.ecoagriculture.org

Objective: To catalyze scaling up of integrated landscape management (ILM), for:

●Climate-resilient, diversified agricultural production

●Secure access to food, fuel, fiber

●Rural livelihoods and culture●Biodiversity●Watershed functions ●Terrestrial climate mitigation

Global Review

Continental Reviews of Integrated Landscape Initiatives (ILIs) in Africa and Latin America

●Context●Motivations and Objectives●Stakeholder groups●Activities and Investments●Outcomes●Opportunities and constraints

Phase 1●Online survey

Phase 2●In-depth

interviews

Geographic distribution of surveyed ILIs in Africa

Complete documentation

from 87 landscape

initiatives in 33 countries

1 15

Key Findings of the Africa Review What is motivating ILIs? - More than 8 objectives on average●Reducing natural resource degradation, sustainable land

management and biodiversity conservation (78-79%)● Enhancing food security (60%)● Improving crop productivity (52%)

Who’s involved – more than 9 stakeholder groups on average● In the landscape – Government, producer groups, potentially

marginalized groups● From outside the landscape – Government, NGOs, other

international

Key Findings of the Africa Review Investments in agroforestry

● 46 ILIs invested directly in agroforestry, and agroforestry was supported in another 12 ILIs by other actors in the landscape

●ILIs that invested in agroforestry reported a higher number of outcomes on average

How is landscape coordination achieved?

Dialogue and mediation of conflicts between local, national and international communities or resource users

Activities to strengthen existing coordination bodies (e.g., inter-jurisdictional councils, public-private partnerships)

Creation of new landscape coordinating bodies

Dialogue and mediation of conflicts among local communities or resource users

Technical assistance to support integrated, landscape-scale management

Capacity building activities to help communities and stake-holders conduct integrated, landscape-scale management

0% 50% 100%

CoreSupporting

Percent of surveyed initiatives

Success factors●Specific, tangible outcomes● Improvements in capacity, knowledge, and governance

Limiting factors●Lack of sufficient and sustainable sources of funding● Infrastructure for transport and storage, as well as

market access●Policies and laws that hinder integrated landscape

management●Key stakeholders, mainly specific government and

private sector entities, were missing from planning and coordination processes

Most successful aspects of the initiatives

Geographic distribution of surveyed ILIs in Latin America

Complete documentation

from 104 landscape

initiatives in 21 countries

75 leaders interviewed from

23 ILIs

Key Findings of the LAC Review What is motivating ILIs? - More than 9 objectives on average

●Reducing natural resource degradation, sustainable land management and biodiversity conservation (65-80%)●Reducing negative impacts of agriculture (52%)●Enhancing food security and improving crop productivity (38%)

Who’s involved ● more than 11 stakeholder groups on average●4 sectors on average – natural resources, agriculture, forestry, tourism

Key Findings of the LAC Review Investments in agroforestry

● 61 ILIs invested directly in agroforestry, and agroforestry was supported in another 16 ILIs by other actors in the landscape

●ILIs that invested in agroforestry reported higher outcomes on average

Key Findings of the LAC Review • Multi objective - greater numbers of investments were

associated with higher numbers of outcomes

• Initiatives with more years of experience reported higher numbers of sectors involved and outcomes

• Initiatives with a greater number of participating stakeholder groups reported greater numbers of investments and outcomes

• Key challenges: limited funding, short-term funding and intermittent or low stakeholder participation over the long term

●ILIs are investing across 4 “domains”: agricultural production, ecosystem conservation, human livelihoods, and institutional planning and coordination

●Initiatives reported positive outcomes across all 4 domains, especially in institutional planning and coordination

●Landscape approaches appear to be contributing to building local foundations for adaptive management and resource governance via:●platforms for stakeholder coordination and negotiation● improved inter-sectoral alignment●empowerment of women and local communities

Conclusions

Conclusions

●Africa - landscape approaches were most commonly rooted in conservation objectives, underwritten by external funding, and often engaged local governments in a superficial way

●LAC - wider range of entry points and objectives, more robust local participation, and greater evidence of supportive policies and platforms

●Common key challenges identified by survey respondents:● long time horizon required to achieve results at scale●unsupportive policy frameworks●difficulty in engaging the private sector and other

important stakeholders

What’s next?

●In-depth interviews with ILI leaders and stakeholder groups in Africa, coming in 2014

●Continental review of integrated landscape initiatives in three sub-regions in Asia: Mekong basin, Indonesia/Malaysia, and South Asia

●Cross-continental synthesis of ILI experiences

THANKS!

For more information contact: ahart@ecoagriculture.org