Four parallel sub-plenaries

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

This sub-plenary will consider how applying landscape approach can contribute to food security and sustainable livelihoods through increasing resilience of the natural and social systems.  A landscape approach works at a geographic level to optimize interactions between land, water and vegetation and between land use systems in order to achieve socio-economic development and environmental sustainability. The sub-plenary will examine the use of a landscape approach in mountains and in drylands, both of which are highly vulnerable to climate change.  It will consider whether lessons learned from integrated management systems, such as agroforestry, can be applied at landscape level.  It will also look at the roles of local communities and indigenous people in building sustainable landscapes, and the part that their traditional knowledge, resource rights and governance arrangements play in building resilience and enhancing food security.

Three key questions the panel will address:

1. What opportunities and constraints have been encountered and what lessons have been learned in applying a landscape approach to mountain and dryland management?
2. What are the lessons from agroforestry and other integrated systems that could inform landscape level management, and how could they be applied?
3. How can the application of the landscape approach and of associated participatory processes ensure that the food security and well-being of the most vulnerable people, including poor local communities and indigenous people, are safeguarded?

Background reading

1. FAO. 2013. Towards food security and improved nutrition: increasing the contribution of forests and trees. Policy brief.
2. Barthel, S., C. Crumley and U. Sevdin. 2013. Bio-cultural refugia—Safeguarding diversity of practices for food security and biodiversity. Global Environmental Change 23(5): 1142-1152.
3. Sayer et al. 2013. Ten principles for a landscape approach to reconciling agriculture, conservation and other competing land uses. PNAS.

Keynote Speaker

• Maria Helena Semedo

  Deputy Director General, Natural Resources of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Panelists

• Tony Simons

  Director General, World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF)

• Tumusiime Rhoda Peace

  Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture at the African Union Commission

• Eduardo Durand

  General director of climate change, Desertification and Water Resources, Ministry of Environment, Peru

• Jeffrey Y. Campbell

  Manager of the Forest and Farm Facility, a partnership between FAO, IIED and IUCN