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Looking beyond the forests to save them – livelihoods and biodiversity in multifunctional landscapes

The platform was launched in recognition of the role that multifunctional landscape mosaics have in preserving biodiversity, both within and outside of protected areas. Photo by Manuel Boissiere

As more of the world’s forests rapidly disappear and become increasingly fragmented, conservation efforts have focused on establishing protected areas to conserve these key ecosystems that support a diverse array of flora and fauna. More recently, conservationists and scientists have observed that protected areas are necessary but not sufficient for the conservation of biodiversity. In this context, the role of multifunctional landscape mosaics, especially those surrounding protected areas, has become increasingly important.

These landscapes include everything from agricultural land, agroforests, and settlements to patches of remaining forest dotting the terrain. What has shaped, and continues to shape, these mosaics are human activities, most commonly communities who are driven by the need to sustain their livelihoods often in the face of poverty. It was because of the need to develop an integrated strategy to address these complex and often conflicting ecological and social dynamics that forty scientists from CIFOR, the World Agroforestry Centre and affiliated organizations converged on Lombok, Indonesia from 3 to 6 December 2007.

The objective of the meeting was to finalize the guidelines for the Landscape Mosaics Project; a project that will research and develop the pathways for the better integration of improved livelihoods and biodiversity conservation into land use management in five countries: Tanzania, Laos, Madagascar, Cameroon and Indonesia. The Landscape Mosaics Project is also the inaugural project of the Joint Biodiversity Platform: an initiative between the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the World Agroforestry Center that was launched in 2006. To unravel the complexity of these human and biophysical landscapes and support the process of improving them, four main complementary and integrated thematic approaches have been identified by the project, which were refined at the workshop: biodiversity and livelihoods; landscape patterns; landscape governance; and rewards for biodiversity conservation.

Through the completion of these studies, an information base will be developed with local communities and relevant government institutions so that they may negotiate a common vision for the future, one which incorporates an improvement in their wellbeing and that of their environment. Achieving these visions often requires tradeoffs between conservation and development concerns, so the Landscape Mosaics Project will try to minimize these tradeoffs. The lessons learned from this project and its approach will serve as Global Public Goods for those investigating and working with similar landscapes across the world.

The participants of the workshop, coming from many parts of the world and disciplinary backgrounds, through their discussions and direct input, contributed to the shaping of an integrated and innovative set of research and development guidelines, adaptive to the different biophysical, cultural and institutional settings of five countries. The discussions were grounded in realities from the sites, provided by representatives of partner organizations from the five countries. In addition, a field trip organized by WWF to the Community Forest of Setiling, provided participants with an actual example of community managed areas for the purpose of livelihoods and conservation, in conjunction with government agencies and a conservation organization.

The final version of the guidelines will be available in early 2008.

For more information

John Watts
Email: j.d.watts@cgiar.org