What type of land management practices occur in your country or in your region of the world? Are they simple and decentralized, or complex and heavily regulated? How do other factors such as climate change, biodiversity conservation and sustainable natural resource management affect agricultural practices in your local sector?
The Global Landscape Forum (GLF) focuses on an integrated strategy of managing resources that benefits both people and the environment called the landscape approach. The GLF is taking place alongside COP19 climate negotiations this 16-17 November, 2013 in Warsaw, Poland.
The landscapes approach, according to Terry Sunderland of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), “ takes into account the entire landscape that could include several complex mosaics such as logging, community concessions, customary land, protected areas and the like which traditionally are examined individually.”
Sunderland adds that the approach seeks to understand the landscape as a whole, understanding what are the drivers of change within it in order to effectively management each sector in a complimentary manner rather than having tradeoffs amongst them. “The challenge,” he says, “lies in having all relevant stakeholders on board for such a change in management.”
For a full understanding of this concept listen to this interview with Terry Sunderland as he explains on the CIFOR Blog.
Clearly there are many items to consider when it comes to balancing the production of food and conservation of the environment. Each situation would differ across the globe as various factors such as topography, location and climate come into play, even within the same region.
Given the global implications of the landscapes approach, how does it relate to the Caribbean? Made up of small island states of which 90% are of developing nation status and which exhibit a myriad of environmental conditions, can the landscapes approach be implemented there?
Mr. Norman Gibson, scientific officer of the Caribbean Agricultural Research Development Institute, (CARDI) and participant, gives brief insight into these questions.
“At the CARDI office based in Trinidad and Tobago,” says Gibson, “there are a number of projects which hold landscape related issues. Particularly in the country’s northern mountain ranges efforts have been made to have farmers adopt environmentally sustainable practices.”
Even so, Gibson explains, related issues such as limited water shed management and forest conservation have heavily affected the livelihoods of several communities in that area. “In general,” says Gibson, “flash flooding, soil erosion and landslides are recurring problems that are interlinked to poor land management. With the landscapes approach this could be resolved long run.”
Based on these comments we can expect a positive outcome from sustained implementation of this approach. However, the Caribbean region also faces organization and implementation issues. Policy and subsequent action plans are poorly managed and become problematic over the long term. Issues of bureaucracy and shifting authority are especially troublesome.
So the question still stands: How far can the landscapes approach really go to solve longstanding environmental problems in a complex and chaotic world?
Blog by Keron Bascombe (Technology4Agri), a social reporter for the GLF.
Photo: D. Kandasamy
