This study was presented during the conference “Production and Carbon Dynamics in Sustainable Agricultural and Forest Systems in Africa” held in September, 2010.
Landscape approach initiatives and traditional village systems: learning for sustainable use of natural resources Per Angelstam, Robert Axelsson, Marine Elbakidze, Monica Castro-Larrañaga, Karl-Erik Johansson, Ngolia Kimanzu, Shyamala Mani, Andrzej Szujecki, Johan Törnblom Management ABSTRACT: Sustainable Development (SD) and sustainability imply a major turning point for the formulation of global, national and business policies on the governance and management of natural resources and landscape values. Even if SD and sustainability has many interpretations, it is ultimately about satisfying ecological, economic and socio-cultural dimensions, and how they can be balanced by adaptive governance at multiple levels. To realize the vision of SD as a process and sustainability as a goal in actual landscapes, a number of concepts have been developed with the aim to create local governance arrangements where landscapes’ actors and stakeholders can meet, cooperate, produce and apply new knowledge for sustainable use of natural resources. The term ‘landscape approach’ captures this. We review the contents of four international, four African, four European and four Indian concepts designed to implement SD and sustainability policies on the ground. We make two conclusions. First, even if the starting points in terms of different dimensions of SD of actual landscapes as integrated social-ecological systems were different, the evolution of different local initiatives and different concepts has been similar in terms of balancing different dimensions of sustainability. However, the level of collaboration among actors and stakeholder in social-ecological systems differ, and often sustainability outcomes are not evaluated. Second, we argue that new and emerging concepts have much to learn from regionally adapted traditional village systems with governance systems that have evolved over long time before the SD discourse appeared. Finally, we stress the need to learn about the experiences from implementation of different landscape approach concepts by empirical applied interdisciplinary knowledge production using multiple case studies in real landscapes as social-ecological systems. Landscape approach initiatives located in large regions with differences in economic history and local governance arrangements, such as in Africa and the European and Indian subcontinents, are particularly interesting. *** DISCUSSION: The presentation was followed by a discussion on how to actually go about merging different disciplines and competences at the landscape level in one research project. This particular initiative has strived for: 1) building partnerships with different forest users such as the church, forest companies and municipalities, who have all realised that collaboration is necessary, and 2) formulating an agenda based on different actors’ interests, rather than focusing on fixed targets and projects.
Transcript
Landscape approach initiatives and traditional village systems: learning for sustainable use of natural resources
Per Angelstam, Robert Axelsson, Marine Elbakidze, Monica Castro-Larrañaga, Karl-Erik Johansson, Ngolia Kimanzu, Shyamala Mani, Andrzej Szujecki, Johan Törnblom
Management
ABSTRACT: Sustainable Development (SD) and sustainability imply a major turning point for the formulation of global, national andbusiness policies on the governance and management of natural resources and landscape values. Even if SD and sustainability has manyinterpretations, it is ultimately about satisfying ecological, economic and socio-cultural dimensions, and how they can be balanced byadaptive governance at multiple levels. To realize the vision of SD as a process and sustainability as a goal in actual landscapes, a numberof concepts have been developed with the aim to create local governance arrangements where landscapes’ actors and stakeholders canmeet, cooperate, produce and apply new knowledge for sustainable use of natural resources. The term ‘landscape approach’ captures this.We review the contents of four international, four African, four European and four Indian concepts designed to implement SD andsustainability policies on the ground. We make two conclusions. First, even if the starting points in terms of different dimensions of SD ofactual landscapes as integrated social-ecological systems were different, the evolution of different local initiatives and different concepts hasbeen similar in terms of balancing different dimensions of sustainability. However, the level of collaboration among actors and stakeholder insocial-ecological systems differ, and often sustainability outcomes are not evaluated. Second, we argue that new and emerging conceptshave much to learn from regionally adapted traditional village systems with governance systems that have evolved over long time before theSD discourse appeared. Finally, we stress the need to learn about the experiences from implementation of different landscape approachconcepts by empirical applied interdisciplinary knowledge production using multiple case studies in real landscapes as social-ecologicalsystems. Landscape approach initiatives located in large regions with differences in economic history and local governance arrangements,such as in Africa and the European and Indian subcontinents, are particularly interesting.
***DISCUSSION: The presentation was followed by a discussion on how to actually go about merging different disciplines and competences atthe landscape level in one research project. This particular initiative has strived for: 1) building partnerships with different forest users suchas the church, forest companies and municipalities, who have all realised that collaboration is necessary, and 2) formulating an agendabased on different actors’ interests, rather than focusing on fixed targets and projects.
Outline
• Research: need for knowledge production and learning
• Landscape approaches– Need to diagnose/evaluate concepts, application
initiatives, and outcomes on the ground• Traditional Village System• Prescribe change to efforts which are:
– Long-term, collaborative, on-the-gound, integrative, imply more work together, provide learning opportunity
Managers’ reality is not disciplinary
• Natural sciences– Goods– Species, habitats and ecosystem processes
• Human sciences– Humanities (cultural values and context)– Social sciences (understanding decision-makers life
world, planning processes, governance etc.)• Tools and engineering
– “Hardware” – management of natural resources– “Software” – learning and governance
Knowledge production
• To produce the needed knowledge+• To communicate the knowledge to the
people that need it = • Social learning processes
(Gibbons et al. 1993, 1999)
“The path forward liesin shifting to an integrated landscape
approach, working with partners outside the sector to develop
sustainable multi-sector responses.”
XIII World Forestry Congress 2009, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Forest Development: A Vital Balance, Findings and Strategic Actions.
Landscape approach as a tool• Focus on a concrete area (= landscape)
– 10,000 to 1,000,000 ha• Collaboration (sustainable development process)
– Private, public and civil sector• Commitment to sustainability (tangible and intangible
benefits)– Criteria & Indicators & Norms
• Production of new knowledge and tools– Quality assurance by external peer-review
• Sharing of knowledge and experiences– Education, communication and public awareness
Different kinds of research
(Tress, Tress and Fry 2006)
Economic andenvironmental
historyGeography
Finding scientific common ground?
Space
Conservation biologyEcology
Policy
Social sciences
Policy
Management in actual landscape
”Policy cycle”
Assessment Governance
Policy
Management in actual landscape
”Policy cycle”
Assessment Governance
(Michael Grodzinski 2005)
Step 1: To identify a case studylandscape
Step 2: To study the environmental and economichistory
Step 3: To map actors, stakeholders,products and land use
Step 4:To analyse policies andthe system of governance
Step 5:To measure the ecological, economic and socio-cultural situation
Step 6: To assess sustainabilitydimensionsin the landscape
Step 7: Synthesis of empiricaldata and development of integrated tools for accounting and adaptive governance
Continuous communication
with societal actors at
multiple levels
Collaboration among academic
and non-academic actors
Diagnosing sustainability (outcome) + sustainable development (process)
1. Identify a case studylandscape
• Biophysical conditions (e.g., ecoregion)
• Economic history• System of
governance
2. Environmental history
• What happened?– Important phases
and consequences• Who did it?
– Actors• Why did it happen?
– Ideology, economy?
3. Map actors and their useof “products” and land use
• Land owners• Land users• Goods, services
and values• Management
systems• Related to land
cover and land cover change
4. Analyse policies andsystem of governance
• Multiple levels– Local to global
• Multiple sectors– Private, public, civic
• Level of co-operation– From information to
partnership
5. Measure ecological, economic and socio-cultural dimensions
• Choose indicators• Use indicators
– Statistics– Maps– GIS– Field work– Remote sensing– Interviews
6. Assess sustainability dimensionsin the landscape
• Reference conditions
• Ecological thresholds
• Compare state and trends of indicators with policies
• From disciplinary/silo to integrative –weaken department and faculty borders
• Collaborative work requires funding also for non-academic partipants
• On-the-gound vertical and horisontal integration among levels and sectors
• From short-term projects (3-4 yrs) to long-term learning (a decade) with bell-shaped funding
Read more• Axelsson, R. 2009. Landscape Approach for sustainable development. from
applied research to transdisciplinary knowledge production. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae 94.
• Elbakidze, M., Angelstam, P. 2007. Implementing sustainable forest management in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains: The role of traditional village systems. Forest Ecology and Management 249: 28–38.
• Elbakidze, M., Angelstam, P., Axelsson, R. 2007. Sustainable forest management as an approach to regional development in the Russian Federation: state and trends in Kovdozersky Model Forest in the Barents region. Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research 22: 568-581. .
• Lazdinis, M., Angelstam, P., Lazdinis, I. 2009. Governing forests of the European Union: institutional framework for interest representation at the European Community level. European Environment and Policy 19: 44-56.
• Duit, A., Hall, O., Mikusinski, G., Angelstam, P. 2009. Saving the woodpeckers: Social capital, governance, and policy performance. Journal of Environment and Development 18:42-61.
• Elbakidze, M., Angelstam, P. 2009. Cross-border cooperation along the eastern border of European Union: a review and approach to learning for sustainable landscapes. Central European Journal of Spatial and Landscape Planning 20(1):33-42.
• Elbakidze, M., Angelstam, P., Sandström, C., Axelsson, R. 2010. Multi-stakeholder collaboration in Russian and Swedish Model Forest initiatives: adaptive governance towards sustainable forest management? Ecology and Society 15(2): 14.
