In December 2007, as the Bali Conference of Parties took centre stage in the global fight against climate change, another group of scientists was gathering just across the Lombok Straits to prepare for a different fight - the fight to save the world's biodiversity.

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, often communities who are driven by the need to sustain their livelihoods 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 (ICRAF) 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 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 CIFOR and ICRAF that was launched in 2006.

"All of us are influenced by our personal as well as our technical background, so we look at problems or research needs from different perspectives," said Dr. Jean-Laurent Pfund, CIFOR Coordinator of the Platform and Landscape Mosaics Project. "Global meetings such as this one generate lively discussions and innovative ideas, largely as a result of these varied perspectives."

"In Lombok the consensus was to minimize the emphasis on comparative research through standardized data collection in favour of impact-oriented research through more participatory ways of compiling information and supporting negotiations" added Pfund.

Four complementary themes have been identified for the project: biodiversity and livelihoods; landscape patterns; landscape governance; and rewards for biodiversity conservation. Based on these themes, 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 both an improvement in their wellbeing as well as that of their environment.

Story by John Watts, CIFOR and AusAID.