Ten principles for a landscape approach to reconciling agriculture, conservation, and other competing land uses

By J. Sayer, T. Sunderland, J. Ghazoul, J. Pfund, Douglas Sheil, Erik Meijaard, M. Venter, A. Boedhihartono, M. Day, Claude A. Garcia and 2 more. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013

1,298 citations recorded by the source corpus.

“Landscape approaches” seek to provide tools and concepts for allocating and managing land to achieve social, economic, and environmental objectives in areas where agriculture, mining, and other productive land uses compete with environmental and biodiversity goals. Here we synthesize the current consensus on landscape approaches. This is based on published literature and a consensus-building process to define good practice and is validated by a survey of practitioners. We find the landscape approach has been refined in response to increasing societal concerns about environment and development tradeoffs. Notably, there has been a shift from conservation-orientated perspectives toward increasing integration of poverty alleviation goals. We provide 10 summary principles to support implementation of a landscape approach as it is currently interpreted. These principles emphasize adaptive management, stakeholder involvement, and multiple objectives. Various constraints are recognized, with institutional and governance concerns identified as the most severe obstacles to implementation. We discuss how these principles differ from more traditional sectoral and project-based approaches. Although no panacea, we see few alternatives that are likely to address landscape challenges more effectively than an approach circumscribed by the principles outlined here.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3a5581bd17ab0832f2fc05791216d2f8d7084dd1

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Citations in the corpus

Sustaining Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (2019, background): “These principles have also been endorsed by the intergovernmental process dealing with biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation and adaptation (Sayer et al. 2013).”
Improving diets with wild and cultivated biodiversity from across the landscape (2015, background): “Similarly, in conservation there has been a move toward landscape approaches in an effort to integrate conservation, agriculture, development and other competing land uses and land management (Sayer et al. 2013).”
Forest Resources Assessment of 2015 shows positive global trends but forest loss and degradation persist in poor tropical countries (2015, background): “, 2014), and these forests are playing a growing role in sustaining production and environmental services (Brockerhoff et al., 2008; Sayer et al., 2013).”
Contemporary forest restoration: A review emphasizing function (2014, background): “, 2008), consider trade-offs among livelihoods and conservation options (Bradford and D’Amato, 2011; Boedhihartono and Sayer, 2012; Sayer et al., 2013), and identify suitable sites for intervention, prioritizing among sites for allocating scarce resources (Lamb et al.”
Systemic perspectives on scaling agricultural innovations. A review (2016, background): “…may not incorporate effects of scaling up the application of certain products, processes , or practices in its decision making because negative effects take place in another domain (e.g. the environment or health) and/or another geographical area (Milder et al. 2014; Sayer et al. 2014).”
Pesticide use and risk reduction in European farming systems with IPM: An introduction to the special issue (2017, background): “This is a difficult task to be addressed since food production and nature conservation compete for the same land (DeFries and Rosenzweig, 2010; Sayer et al., 2013).”
Renewable energy and biodiversity: Implications for transitioning to a Green Economy (2017, background): “However, such landscape approaches should consider a number of planning principles if they are to be successful [339].”
Deforestation in the Ayeyarwady Delta and the conservation implications of an internationally-engaged Myanmar (2014, background): “policy dimensions to prevent significant increases in deforestation while focusing on greater agricultural production (e.g., Angelsen, 2010; Sayer et al., 2013).”
Vertebrate biodiversity on indigenous-managed lands in Australia, Brazil, and Canada equals that in protected areas (2019, background): “For example, protected areas established based upon Euro-American wilderness ideals typically prohibit Indigenous peoples from exercising their customary land uses, and forcibly removed many Indigenous groups from their homelands (e.g., Sinclair and Arcese, 1995; Barrett and Arcese, 1995).”
Sand and Dust Storms: Impact Mitigation (2017, background): “SL i ti l r c tri t t t res l ti f iss es s rro i t e nee to achieve social, econo ic an e viron ental objectives in areas here roductive land ses fte c ete it ir ental a io iversity goals: t e c ce t f i tegrate landscape anage ent [70].”