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

2. landscapes.ecoagriculture.org

3. 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

4. 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

5. Geographic distribution of surveyed ILIs
in Africa
Complete
documentation from
87 landscape initiatives
in 33 countries
1
15

6. 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

7. 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

8. How is landscape coordination achieved?
Capacity building activities to help communities and
stakeholders conduct integrated, landscape-scale…
Technical assistance to support integrated, landscapescale management
Dialogue and mediation of conflicts among local
communities or resource users
Creation of new landscape coordinating bodies
Core
Supporting
Activities to strengthen existing coordination bodies
(e.g., inter-jurisdictional councils, public-private…
Dialogue and mediation of conflicts between
local, national and international communities or…
0%
50%
100%
Percent of surveyed initiatives

9. Most successful aspects of the 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

10. Geographic distribution of surveyed ILIs
in Latin America
Complete
documentation from
104 landscape initiatives
in 21 countries
75 leaders interviewed
from 23 ILIs

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. Conclusions
● 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. For more information contact: ahart@ecoagriculture.org
THANKS!