This document describes a landscape game designed to help players understand the dynamics of land competition, policy measures, and sustainability in a landscape. The game involves players making investments in different land covers to maximize their benefits, while a policy maker sets rules. It is intended to provide lessons on how various strategies affect the landscape and player incomes. The goal is for players to approach a Nash Equilibrium where no player can unilaterally change their strategy to increase benefits.

1. Landscape Game: A model to understand the
dynamics of land competition, policy measures
and sustainability of a landscape
[Herry Purnomo, Rika Harini Irawati]
[MODSIM, December 2011]
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2. Background
 Managing landscape involves
various actors and land covers
 Need better understanding of
• how each actor rationally
behaves
• and how they react to rules
and regulations set by policy
makers
 Trade-offs frequently occur
 Landscape Game is a tool for
understanding this complexity
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3. Aims
 Providing lessons on what can
happen to landscape and to
players‟ income when the players
apply various strategies.
 It includes how „Nash Equilibrium‟
is approached, in which all players
apply optimal strategy.
Nash Equilibrium: solution concept of a game
involving two or more players, in which each
player is assumed to know the equilibrium
strategies of the other players and no player
has anything to gain by changing his / her
own strategy unilaterally
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4. The Game Theory
 The game‟s realism may take one of several forms
(Chomitz, 2007):
(a)Explicit reality, where game presents the actors’ real
situation and their resources
(b)Implicit reality, where game represents a simplified
version of actors and their resources
(c)Virtual world, where game is based on an issue that
is not necessarily related to a specific actor or
resource.
 Romp (1997); Individualism, Rationality,
Interdependency
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5. The Landscape Game
 Non-computerized game
 Based on issues of competing land use, maximizing benefits for each
set of actors, and sustainability of forest landscape.
 Comprises players, a set of possible strategies in forest landscape,
and pay-offs.
 Expected to be played by local communities, policy makers, students
and academics.
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6. Inspirations
 Monopoly
 SimCity
 American Farmers
 Snakes and Ladders
 Fish Game
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7. Game Development
 Players
- Ideally six or more people (4 players (may play in
collaboration e.g. 2 vs. 2), 1 banker, 1 government and
adviser(s)) OR
- at least three people (2 players and 1
banker/government)
 Spatial setting and payoffs
- Three types of area: forest core, forest edge and
mosaic lands (Chomitz, 2007)
- Spatial concepts include land competition, cellular
automata, forest cover, settlements, rivers, roads
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8. Spatial Setting
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9. Landscape Concept
Type of Features Poverty and Environmental Governance challenge
area development challenge
challenge
Mosaic-land High land value, many Managing landscapes for production and Enforcing property rights
inhabitants, small environmental services, preventing over land, trees, and
fraction of forest extinctions of threatened species, environmental services
fostering carbon sequestration
Forest edge Agricultural expansion, Fostering more Avoiding irreversible Restraining resource
rapidly increasing land intensive rural degradation, grabs by large actors,
values, conflicts over development and mitigating CO2 averting races for
forest use access to off-farm emissions, avoiding property rights by
employment forest fragmentation smallholders, equitably
adjudicating land claims
Forest core Mostly forest, contains Providing services Maintaining large- Protecting indigenous
minority of forest for dispersed scale environmental people’s rights, averting
inhabitants but many populations processes disorderly frontier
indigenous people expansion
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10. Investments
 Players can invest in
plantations, ecotourism,
timber logging, carbon
sequestration, mining and
other industries to
maximize their benefits on
a shared landscape,
dynamically ruled by a
policy maker.
 The policy maker can
exercise different policies
and rules to sustain the
landscape.
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11. Pay-offs
Type of Possible investment Cost (Þ) Return (Þ) Hypothec Return/Investment Note
area (Þ) time
Forest Ecotourism Pass the area
core/
Forest 10 2 5
edge
Ecotourism in HCVF 20 3 10 Pass the area HCVF areas
Logging concession One cycle Non HCVF area; Need re-
13 50 6 investment after 1 cycle
Carbon for avoiding One cycle
deforestation 2 3 1
Mosaic- Acacia One cycle Need re-investment after 1 cycle
land 22 40 11
Oil palm plantation One cycle Need re-investment after 1 cycle
21 59 10
Bio-fuel 6 8 3 One cycle
Community based agro- One cycle Need re-investment) after 1 cycle
forestry (sengon)
30 74 15
Carbon for re-forestation One cycle
6 6 3
Specific Sustainability fund - The fund cards display how much
areas - Take a card points you receive
Fire - If there are five patches of fast
wood plantation and oil palm
25 - (together).
Landslide - If there are five patches of
logging concession and coal
15 - mining (together)
Risk - The risk cards display what
- Take a card
risk/threat you will get
Coal mining 50 75 20 One cycle Reinvest after two cycle
Drinking Water - Get Þ5 for every other players
50 5 30 investment
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12. How to play (1)
 Recommended play time is
one hour.
 The banker distributes initial
funds to each player - 100
points; the government has a
limited fund (200 points).
 Initially the players are
located randomly.
 When a player arrives in a
certain patch, various
investments can be made.
 Certain patches are
dedicated to mining, drinking
water investments, „fire‟,
„landslide‟ and „sustainability
fund‟.
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13. How to play (2)
 The player pays investment
costs to the banker.
 The government can create
incentive and disincentive
policies during the game (Nash
Equilibrium).
 Players can persuade the
government.
 The players can borrow money
(the banker determines the
conditions).
 Players get returns from the
banks after one or two cycles
(according to the investment).
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14. At the end of the game
 The players count their
cash and total assets.
 The government assesses
the landscape; if the
landscape is getting better,
good player(s) can get an
award from the
government.
 The player who collected
the most money (including
cash, assets and award)
will win the game.
 The banker counts all players‟ money to find out the
players‟ productivity and the gap between the „richest‟
and „poorest‟.
 All players, banker, and government discuss what
lesson can be learned from the game.
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15. Results
 1st Game by forestry students
Investments, Player A Player B Player C
cash and loans
Landscape Value Landscape Value Landscape Value
Assets Teak 50 Ecotourism (2) 14 Carbon (2) 10
Oil palm 16 Logging (2) 14 Bio fuel 5
Carbon (2) 10 Albazia 25 Acacia 17
Logging 7 Oil palm 16 Teak 50
Ecotourism 7 Water 40
Acacia 17
Cash 32 50 118
Total 139 129 240
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16. Results (2)
 2nd Game played by forestry students (different players)
Investments, Player A Player B Player C
cash and loans Landscape Value Landscape Value Landscape Value
Assets Water 45 Acacia 17 Ecotourism 23
non HCVF (3)
Carbon 11 Ecotourism 7 Carbon (3) 21
Ecotourism 18 Carbon 5 Oil palm 75
non HCVF (2)
Logging 57 Teak 50 Logging 57
Ecotourism 18.
HCVF
Cash 22 50 6
Loans 50 0 0
Total 121 129 182
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17. Results (3)
 3rd game played by RECOFT-University of Wageningen training on
Governance
Investments, Player A Player B Player C Player D
cash and Landscape Value Landscape Value Landscape Value Landscape Value
loans
Assets Albizia 7 Albizia 25 Biofuel (2) 10 Teak (2) 100
Water 40 Logging 14 Carbon (5) 25 Ecotourism 28
(4)
Ecotourism 15 Carbon 10 Ecotourism 14 Coal mining 30
HCVF (2)
Carbon 5 Bio fuel 10 Forest 7
Logging
Ecotourism 21
Cash 223 223 99 237
Penalty 110 110 110 220
Total 198 193 75 175
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18. Discussions
 All players imagined and
connected the game‟s spatial
landscape, social actors and
rules to reality.
 Background and experiences of
players influenced the way they
managed „the landscape‟.
 Play It Safe vs Risk Taker
 "If we were all better people, the
world would be a better place"
 Policy implements the principles
of good governance 
participatory, accountability,
transparency and effectiveness
to sustain the landscape.
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19. Impacts of Playing the Game
 Best strategy to win
 Understanding reciprocal strategies of the
“opponents”
 Sense of integration between development
and conservation activities
 Effective policy for managing a landscape
(anticipate and develop new policies)
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20. Conclusions
 The landscape game is a virtual reality, where
players can experience development,
conservation and policy implementation in a
landscape.
 The game can stimulate conceptual thinking of
landscape management.
 The game is able to represent the common
landscape and its management.
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21. www.cifor.org
CIFOR advances human well-being, environmental conservation, and equity by conducting
research to inform policies and practices that affect forests in developing countries.
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