This study was presented during the conference “Production and Carbon Dynamics in Sustainable Agricultural and Forest Systems in Africa” held in September, 2010.

1. Landscape approach initiatives and traditional village
systems: learning for sustainable use of natural resources
Per Angelstam, Robert Axelsson, Marine Elbakidze, Monica Castro-Larrañaga, Karl-Erik Johansson, Ngolia Kimanzu,
Shyamala Mani, Andrzej Szujecki, Johan Törnblom
Management
ABSTRACT: Sustainable Development (SD) and sustainability imply a major turning point for the formulation of global, national and
business policies on the governance and management of natural resources and landscape values. Even if SD and sustainability has many
interpretations, it is ultimately about satisfying ecological, economic and socio-cultural dimensions, and how they can be balanced by
adaptive governance at multiple levels. To realize the vision of SD as a process and sustainability as a goal in actual landscapes, a number
of concepts have been developed with the aim to create local governance arrangements where landscapes’ actors and stakeholders can
meet, cooperate, produce and apply new knowledge for sustainable use of natural resources. The term ‘landscape approach’ captures this.
We review the contents of four international, four African, four European and four Indian concepts designed to implement SD and
sustainability policies on the ground. We make two conclusions. First, even if the starting points in terms of different dimensions of SD of
actual landscapes as integrated social-ecological systems were different, the evolution of different local initiatives and different concepts has
been similar in terms of balancing different dimensions of sustainability. However, the level of collaboration among actors and stakeholder in
social-ecological systems differ, and often sustainability outcomes are not evaluated. Second, we argue that new and emerging concepts
have much to learn from regionally adapted traditional village systems with governance systems that have evolved over long time before the
SD discourse appeared. Finally, we stress the need to learn about the experiences from implementation of different landscape approach
concepts by empirical applied interdisciplinary knowledge production using multiple case studies in real landscapes as social-ecological
systems. Landscape approach initiatives located in large regions with differences in economic history and local governance arrangements,
such as in Africa and the European and Indian subcontinents, are particularly interesting.
***
DISCUSSION: The presentation was followed by a discussion on how to actually go about merging different disciplines and competences at
the landscape level in one research project. This particular initiative has strived for: 1) building partnerships with different forest users such
as the church, forest companies and municipalities, who have all realised that collaboration is necessary, and 2) formulating an agenda
based on different actors’ interests, rather than focusing on fixed targets and projects.

2. Outline
• Research: need for knowledge production and
learning
• Landscape approaches
– Need to diagnose/evaluate concepts, application
initiatives, and outcomes on the ground
• Traditional Village System
• Prescribe change to efforts which are:
– Long-term, collaborative, on-the-gound, integrative,
imply more work together, provide learning
opportunity

3. Managers’ reality is not disciplinary
• Natural sciences
– Goods
– Species, habitats and ecosystem processes
• Human sciences
– Humanities (cultural values and context)
– Social sciences (understanding decision-makers life
world, planning processes, governance etc.)
• Tools and engineering
– “Hardware” – management of natural resources
– “Software” – learning and governance

4. Knowledge production
• To produce the needed knowledge
+
• To communicate the knowledge to the
people that need it
=
• Social learning processes
(Gibbons et al. 1993, 1999)

5. “The path forward lies
in shifting to an integrated landscape
approach, working with partners
outside the sector to develop
sustainable multi-sector responses.”
XIII World Forestry Congress 2009, Buenos Aires,
Argentina. Forest Development: A Vital Balance,
Findings and Strategic Actions.

6. Landscape approach as a tool
• Focus on a concrete area (= landscape)
– 10,000 to 1,000,000 ha
• Collaboration (sustainable development process)
– Private, public and civil sector
• Commitment to sustainability (tangible and intangible
benefits)
– Criteria & Indicators & Norms
• Production of new knowledge and tools
– Quality assurance by external peer-review
• Sharing of knowledge and experiences
– Education, communication and public awareness

7. Different kinds of research
(Tress, Tress and Fry 2006)

8. Economic and
environmental
historyGeography
Finding scientific common ground?
Space
Conservation
biologyEcology
Policy
Social sciences

9. Policy
Management in
actual landscape
”Policy cycle”
Assessment Governance

10. Policy
Management in
actual landscape
”Policy cycle”
Assessment Governance

11. (Michael Grodzinski 2005)

12. Step 1:
To identify a
case study
landscape
Step 2:
To study the
environmental
and economic
history
Step 3:
To map actors,
stakeholders,
products
and land use
Step 4:
To analyse
policies and
the system
of governance
Step 5:
To measure
the ecological,
economic and
socio-cultural
situation
Step 6:
To assess
sustainability
dimensions
in the
landscape
Step 7:
Synthesis of empirical
data and development of
integrated tools for
accounting and
adaptive governance
Continuous
communication
with societal
actors at
multiple levels
Collaboration
among academic
and non-academic
actors
Diagnosing sustainability (outcome) +
sustainable development (process)

13. 1. Identify a case study
landscape
• Biophysical
conditions (e.g.,
ecoregion)
• Economic history
• System of
governance

14. 2. Environmental history
• What happened?
– Important phases
and consequences
• Who did it?
– Actors
• Why did it happen?
– Ideology,
economy?

15. 3. Map actors and their use
of “products” and land use
• Land owners
• Land users
• Goods, services
and values
• Management
systems
• Related to land
cover and land
cover change

16. 4. Analyse policies and
system of governance
• Multiple levels
– Local to global
• Multiple sectors
– Private, public, civic
• Level of co-operation
– From information to
partnership

17. 5. Measure ecological, economic
and socio-cultural dimensions
• Choose indicators
• Use indicators
– Statistics
– Maps
– GIS
– Field work
– Remote sensing
– Interviews

18. 6. Assess sustainability dimensions
in the landscape
• Reference
conditions
• Ecological
thresholds
• Compare state and
trends of indicators
with policies

19. 7. Synthesis
• Comparative
studies
• Education material
• Communication
• Learning processes

20. Sweden and Russia

21. The Habsburg Empire
KRAKOW
LJUBLJANA

22. Europe as a
”landscape laboratory”

23. Scaling up using
multiple case studies
• Concepts aiming at landscape approach
– Review of 16 concepts’ trajectories of development
• Initiatives’ profiles in actual landscapes
– Comparison of Biosphere Reserve and Model Forest
globally (n=32+32)
• Outcomes
– Governance of agriforestry developement in the Vi
Forest Programme in East Africa
• Pattern
• Process

24. 16 concepts
• Global
– Agenda 21, Biosphere Reserve, Model Forest,
Ramsar
• African
– Campfire, Vi Agroforestry, Land husbandry,
Community-based SFM
• European
– Leader, Regional nature park, Promotional forest
complex, Russian National Park
• Indian
– Joint Forest Management, Panchyati Raj, Water
management, Participatory irrigation management

25. Economic
Ecological Social

26. Economic
Ecological Social

27. Biosphere Reserve (n=32)
and Model Forest (n=32)
• ecological values
• cultural
values
economical values
•
• social
values
Biosphere Reserve
Model Forest
(Robert Axelsson, Per Angelstam ms.)

28. Vi Agroforestry Programme
(Karl-Erik Johansson, Ngolia Kimanzu, Robert Axelsson, Per Angelstam ms.)
• Mara region in Tanzania from 1994
• How are outcomes in terms of tree survival
linked to...
• ...the governance arrangement (sector,
level, power)
– 21 households per village
– 102 villages
– District, regional, national and international

30. 0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
1997* 1998* 1999* 2000** 2001***
No of new ≥1srv Hhs accumulated No of ≥1srv Hhs
Households with surviving trees

31. Variation in Agroforestry adoption
Inter-village variation in the proportion of households
with 10 or more AF-trees
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91 101
villages
proportion
47%

32. Governance arrangement is key
(= sector + level + power)
Public Private Civil
Macro
Meso
Micro

33. Rostochya, Ukraine

34. Village structure...
settlementsout-field / forest
in-field /
meadow
in-field /
crops

35. ...and social system

36. Traditional village system
Silva
Saltus
Ager
Hortus
Domus

38. Magnus Jirström
Lennart Olsson
Agnes Andersson
Thomas Rosswall
Bernard Vanlauwe
Lennart Båge

39. SLU’s mission:
• Research
• Education
• Environmental assessment
• Collaboration
• Need to improve integration
CONSIDERABLE!

41. Obstacles to be overcome
• From disciplinary/silo to integrative –
weaken department and faculty borders
• Collaborative work requires funding also
for non-academic partipants
• On-the-gound vertical and horisontal
integration among levels and sectors
• From short-term projects (3-4 yrs) to long-
term learning (a decade) with bell-shaped
funding

42. Read more
• Axelsson, R. 2009. Landscape Approach for sustainable development. from
applied research to transdisciplinary knowledge production. Acta Universitatis
Agriculturae Sueciae 94.
• Elbakidze, M., Angelstam, P. 2007. Implementing sustainable forest management
in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains: The role of traditional village systems. Forest
Ecology and Management 249: 28–38.
• Elbakidze, M., Angelstam, P., Axelsson, R. 2007. Sustainable forest management
as an approach to regional development in the Russian Federation: state and
trends in Kovdozersky Model Forest in the Barents region. Scandinavian Journal
of Forest Research 22: 568-581. .
• Lazdinis, M., Angelstam, P., Lazdinis, I. 2009. Governing forests of the European
Union: institutional framework for interest representation at the European
Community level. European Environment and Policy 19: 44-56.
• Duit, A., Hall, O., Mikusinski, G., Angelstam, P. 2009. Saving the woodpeckers:
Social capital, governance, and policy performance. Journal of Environment and
Development 18:42-61.
• Elbakidze, M., Angelstam, P. 2009. Cross-border cooperation along the eastern
border of European Union: a review and approach to learning for sustainable
landscapes. Central European Journal of Spatial and Landscape Planning
20(1):33-42.
• Elbakidze, M., Angelstam, P., Sandström, C., Axelsson, R. 2010. Multi-stakeholder
collaboration in Russian and Swedish Model Forest initiatives: adaptive
governance towards sustainable forest management? Ecology and Society 15(2):
14.