In time for the final meetings of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative has published a policy statement. Signatories so far include:
- Sara J. Scherr President, EcoAgriculture Partners
- Peter Holmgren Director General, CIFOR
- Tony Simons Director General, ICRAF
- Ann Tutwiler Director General, Bioversity International
- José Joaquín Campos Arce Director General, CATIE
- Melinda Kimble Senior Vice President, UN Foundation
You can read, download and sign the statement here on landscapes.org
If the post-2015 sustainable development agenda is to be effective,
an integrated approach that recognizes and embraces the interdependencies of social, economic and environmental goals is required.1 Rather than set goals that codify old sectoral conflicts over increasingly scarce land and resources, we must adopt strategies that encourage collaboration and build coalitions. To achieve this, each Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) must be supported by cross-cutting targets and shared multi-scale indicators that promote efforts to capitalize on positive relationships between the goals and avoid or minimize negative interactions. With this in mind, the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative proposes a general target for landscape management. This target provides the foundation for a menu or “dashboard” of targets and indicators, with explicit potential synergies and trade-offs, for country implementers to choose from, according to context and need, for each goal.2 We, the signatories of this statement, urge the Open Working Group to incorporate it into the development of all related Sustainable Development Goals.
Download the statement: Integrated Landscapes Targets for the Sustainable Development Goals
The Proposed Target
All landscapes are managed by their stakeholders, across sectoral and administrative boundaries, in a way that integrates food security, sustainable production, livelihood development and ecosystem services.
Why an integrated landscape target for the SDGs
The Open Working Group’s March 2014 update emphasizes that goals related to poverty eradication, sustainable agriculture, food security and nutrition, water and sanitation, health and population dynamics, sustainable cities and human settlements, ecosystems and biodiversity, climate, and sustainable production and consumption will necessarily be linked.3 A cross-cutting integrated landscapes target offers a mechanism by which the international community can implement such interrelated SDGs, because such a target fits well within any number of proposed SDGs, and provides clear guidance for countries, both developed and developing, as they examine the interrelationships and impacts across all of the goals and then seek to implement integrated approaches to these inter-connected challenges.4
The cross-cutting landscape target we propose meets the filter for targets proposed by UNEP—to leave no one behind, to achieve greater prosperity, and to increase capital to achieve greater resilience5—and, it is applicable for implementation across scales. Simply put, the landscapes target offers a mechanism by which the international community can most effectively and efficiently implement interrelated SDGs.
Implementing an integrated landscape target to achieve the SDGs
Landscape is a generic and politically neutral term for a socio-ecological system that consists of a mosaic of natural and/or human-modified ecosystems. Integrated landscape management (ILM) requires the development of shared or agreed management objectives that encompass multiple benefits from the landscape; the adoption of field, farm and forest practices designed to contribute to multiple objectives; the management of ecological, social, and economic interactions among different parts of the landscape to realize positive synergies; the existence of collaborative, community-engaged processes for dialogue, planning, negotiating, and monitoring decisions; and the development of markets and public policies to achieve the diverse set of landscape objectives and institutional requirements.6 ILM promotes collective action capitalizing on the knowledge, interests and passions of all stakeholders so that our activities restore and protect the planet while improving outcomes for people.
Integrated landscape approaches are already being used around the world in places where challenges and opportunities clearly demanded simultaneously increasing food production, improving livelihoods, and protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services.7 The activities of many national governments and international organizations reflect the increasing appreciation for the value of these approaches.
For example, Rwanda has adopted a national landscape restoration strategy with a goal of improving rural livelihoods. Eight nations in Central America are implementing an area-based approach to rural development that supports participatory regional planning to address agriculture, environment, health, human development and climate change in an integrated way. Ethiopia is overcoming chronic food insecurity with landscape approaches to agricultural restoration and water management. In Colombia, public-private partnerships for integrated watershed management are improving water quality and lowering municipal water treatment costs while also reducing business risks for commercial brewers. Indonesia is adopting integrated landscape approaches to conserve forest in areas of rapid agricultural development. The United States is supporting large multi-stakeholder initiatives to restore water quality in intensive crop production landscapes. Proponents of sustainable cities are using an integrated city region approach to achieve food security and environmental goals. The first Global Landscapes Forum, held at the UNFCCC in December 2013, demonstrated the rapid growth in expertise, practical tools and organizational capacity to implement and support integrated landscape management, as well as the emerging coalitions behind integrated approaches.
The Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative’s Global Review has compiled the evidence on integrated landscape management. Our studies have called out critical factors for successful governance of integrated landscapes, pointed to policy barriers for implementing ILM, prescribed new financing strategies to improve landscape performance for multiple objectives, identified key areas for technical research on ecosystem and agricultural interventions, and investigated the opportunities for private sector involvement in landscape initiatives.8 At the same time, more knowledge of the details of integrated landscape management is emerging through program and project evaluations and from research institutions around the world.
Options for Indicators and Measurement
A variety of biophysical, socioeconomic and institutional indicators are needed to efficiently track progress on a landscapes target. Recent advances in scientific research and spatially sensitive assessment methodologies have made multi-objective landscape monitoring a practical option. The “dashboard” approach allows indicators indicators like those suggested below to be tailored for each goal.
Number of Integrated Landscape Initiatives
Integrated Landscape Initiatives (ILI) are institutional entities in which stakeholders plan and implement activities together across sectors and administrative boundaries. Recent reviews of agricultural ILIs in Africa and Latin America demonstrated practical methods and criteria for documenting and tracking the improvements in the number, inclusivity and effectiveness of ILIs.
Proportion of agricultural area managed with water-, climate- and biodiversity-friendly practices
For example, the Aichi Biodiversity Targets already promote biodiversity-friendly agricultural areas. The indicators used to monitor trends in the area of agricultural ecosystems under sustainable management, the population of agriculture-dependent species in production areas, and the proportion of products derived from sustainable sources could be used or modified to monitor the proportion of agricultural area managed for multiple objectives.
Area of landscapes with continuous vegetative cover
Indicators can be designed to reflect a variety of biophysical and economic improvements in landscapes. For example, the Bonn Challenge on Forest Landscape Restoration to restore 150 million hectares of forest by 2020 (including 50 million hectares under agroforestry) can serve as a model for a biophysical indicator, and its tracking process can serve a dual purpose within the SDGs.
National policy support for integrated landscape management
Strength of national policy support for ILM, including integration into national development strategies, would correlate with the effectiveness of integrated landscape initiatives within a country. National support for ILM could be tracked using sub-indicators such as the existence and implementation of supportive policies and programs, public sector financing and the extent of inter-sectoral or inter-ministerial coordination.
Percentage improvement in the multiple dimensions of human well-being of households within the landscape
An important indication of the vitality of a landscape is the well-being of the people within it. Indicators that measure human well-being across multiple dimensions, such as indices to track multidimensional poverty, household livelihood security or household food security could be tailored to track spatial and temporal patterns and changes across landscapes.
