The landscape approach in practice: Lessons learned and future implementation of The Forest Dialogue's Land Use Dialogues

The Land Use Dialogue (LUD) Initiative, a multi-country engagement platform coordinated by The Forests Dialogue (TDF) alongside local and global partners including IUCN and Brazilian Forests Dialogues, seeks to gather knowledge and lead processes enabling responsible business, improved governance and inclusive development in landscapes at risk of deforestation.

TFD’s dialogues focus on engaging a diversity of interests to foster relationships and build trust around contentious forest and landscape issues; craft a shared understanding of objectives, challenges, and opportunities; and seek change through consensus-based collaboration aimed at immediate action and long-term progress.  

The LUD is the first of TFD’s initiatives to use an ongoing platform at a landscape scale. It aims to understand and improve the practical implementation of the ‘landscape approach’ in order to address the often-competing interests of different stakeholders in a landscape, which is central to sustainable land management and key for broader economic and social development. While there is a growing body of research on the landscape approach, there is still a lack of real-world examples of how it can lead to tangible improvements on the ground. One of the factors hindering better impact on the ground, particularly in terms of addressing deforestation and land-use change is the lack of constructive dialogue as the basis for exploring and reconciling stakeholder perspectives in landscapes that matter. The LUD initiative seeks to fill this void and has now conducted such dialogue processes in 6 countries across Africa, Latin America, and Asia.  

Together with IUCN and the Brazilian Forests Dialogues, TFD will convene a side event at the World Forestry Congress to share lessons learned, best practices and present a newly published LUD Guide for the community of practice to better access and learn the methods, challenges, and opportunities of multi-stakeholder engagement processes in the landscape approach.

RECOFTC is joining the panel discussion to share insights from using a landscape-based approach in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Introduction

• Milagre Nuvunga, Co-founder of Micaia Foundation

Panel

• Rod Keenan, EcoGipps Gippsland Forest Dialogue
• David Ganz, Executive Director at RECOFTC
• Fernanda Rodrigues, Executive Secretary of the Brazilian Forests Dialogue and TFD LUD Leader
• Chetan Kumar, Manager, Landscape Restoration Science and Knowledge at International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)