Enhancing multifunctionality through system improvement and landscape democracy processes: a synthesis

Abstract

The landscape approach has been increasingly featured in the literature as a viable and reliable approach to reconciling agriculture, conservation, development, climate change and other competing land uses and objectives in the context of sustainability (DeFries & Rosenweig, 2010; Scherr et al., 2012; Sayer et al., 2013). At the same time there is growing recognition that landscapes are complex socio-ecological systems with a mosaic of land uses, multiple stakeholders, with diverse and sometimes conflicting objectives and perspectives. Therefore managing landscapes requires an equally sophisticated approach that can work within the complexity involved. However, such sophistication must not stand in the way of sufficiently pragmatic simplicity required to ensure successful implementation. Hence, the question has arisen on how to best facilitate a landscape approach to enable effectiveness, efficiency and equity in practice. This chapter synthesizes cross-cutting process elements from the chapters in this book and proposes a process-based approach to facilitate sustainable multifunctional landscapes in practice. It also draws on the chapters and some of the examples within, as well as broader literature to highlight and demonstrate the relevance and usefulness of process in a landscape approach