Integrated Landscape Initiatives: An Emerging Paradigm for African Agriculture, Development, and Conservation

Perspectives on and prescriptions for African rural development are now recognizing the convergence of food security, energy production, economic development, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem management, and ecosystem management in rural landscapes. This shift is reflected in the growing recognition of the importance of healthy ecosystems in long-term economic growth, as embodied in contemporary concepts such as the Green Economy. The Green Economy seeks to incorporate natural capital considerations into development and policy. Similarly, agricultural modernization and rural development in Africa are now focusing on stronger social and environmental outcomes, such as food production that sustains the natural resource base and enhances agroecosystem and livelihood resilience. However, while more holistic farm solutions are important, they are often insufficient, given that ecosystem services underpinning human wellbeing and economic activity are often mediated at larger scales. Landscape, watershed, and sub-regional scales are the level at which sectoral objectives frequently collide, such as increased agricultural production reducing critical flows for hydropower and urban development. Many contend that integrated management of rural landscapes will be the best way to ensure human needs are met, conflict is mediated and mitigated, as growing human demands for food, bio-energy, and ecosystem services collide with land, water, and other natural resources. Prior experience with landscape approaches in Africa emerged from the conservation sector, addressing ecosystem management and landscape ecology. Early integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) worked at a landscape scale but had weak logical frameworks and weak local community engagement. The conservation sector has increasingly targeted its work to areas where agriculture is a land use, addressing conservation and development aims through ecosystem services, human-wildlife conflict, and climate change adaptation and mitigation. The methodologies of farming systems and gestion de terroirs in West Africa addressed agricultural development in a holistic manner but generally focused on farm or village scales and did not address broader ecosystem issues or their feedbacks on food security and rural livelihoods. A concerted attempt to align agricultural development with broader ecosystem management issues and their feedbacks on food security and rural livelihoods is now underway. The study surveyed participants in "integrated landscape initiatives" (ILIs) across sub-Saharan Africa to provide a region-wide portrait of contexts, motivations, design, participation, and outcomes of such initiatives. The study identified 73 ILIs in 22 countries, most of which began in the past six years. While a high number of initiatives had an entry point in agriculture or conservation, most were motivated by and invested in achieving gains in four domains of landscape multi-functionality: agricultural production, ecosystem conservation, human livelihoods, and institutional strengthening. Initiative outcomes were reported in 22 areas, including increased capacity and improved coordination for landscape planning and management, conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services, increased agricultural yields, household cash income, and food security. Investments in new landscape bodies and capacity building were associated with greater numbers of outcomes. The findings provide evidence that ILIs are increasing the delivery of goods and services in regions and helping stakeholders mediate tradeoffs and synergies among outcomes. The study's results suggest that integrated approaches may be a more effective means to achieve specific sectoral aims such as boosting agricultural production or conserving biodiversity. The study's findings provide a region-wide portrait of ILIs in sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting the importance of integrated landscape approaches in addressing the convergence of food security, energy production, economic development, biodiversity conservation, ecosystem management, and ecosystem management in rural landscapes.