Collaborative Management around Agriculture in the Mekong River Basin

Across East and Southeast Asia, many on-farm and local efforts are underway to incorporate environmental stewardship into agricultural production, but is it enough to save local ecosystems?

The newest research from The World Bank, EcoAgriculture Partners, and Clarmondial informs policymakers in how to set environmental standards and put them into effect in their agricultural sectors. In their co-authored book  Steps Toward Green: Policy Responses to the Environmental Footprint of Commodity Agriculture in East and Southeast Asia, the authors suggest the landscape approach as an applicable means for managing natural resources in a way that makes sense at the regional, provincial, and local levels. A central point of collaborative planning, as prescribed by the landscape approach, is to empower key stakeholders to manage the resources that they depend on. To do this, personnel in government, land planning, and civil society need to have the appropriate skill sets and opportunities to engage in constructive dialogues. Having the proper knowledge set and insight on all of the interests involved in the boundaries of any given ecosystem allows for planners to asses trade-offs and synergies implicated by land use decisions.

Join the experts on September 15th in a panel discussion on commodity agriculture, development, and policy in East and Southeast Asia.

This past June in China, efforts to begin the conversation around the management of the Mekong River watershed launched, demonstrating promise in creating a collaborative climate for the management of an interconnected system that spans six countries. In regional meetings, policymakers and land use planners provided the contextual understanding for policymakers to Define a vision for environmental stewardship and to Enable stakeholders to carry out environmental aspirations. Nauman Haque of the United Nations Environment Program reports on these developments.

Stakeholders of the Greater Mekong Sub-region open the conservation on building capacity for the landscape approach

A two day meeting held between 25th and 26th of June in Dongying, China brought together several ecosystem management practitioners and decision makers to provide science, technology, policy and capacity support to developing countries to integrate ecosystem management approach into their national policies and development plans to enhance the delivery of ecosystem services for human well-being in the greater Mekong Sub-region.

The meeting brought together 30 participants, including 6 government focal points from the Mekong sub region, (Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, and China), the Mekong River Commission, ICRAF, China-ASEAN Environmental Cooperation Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, & six members of the UNEP-IEMP team working on this project. The meeting was the first step toward defining ecosystem interactions between the countries in the greater Mekong sub region. The conversation then focused on defining how the regional team would work together to achieve build the capacity of Greater Mekong sub-region countries to manage ecosystems in the area, as proposed by the Ecosystem Management of Productive Landscapes project.

Key decision makers and land use practitioners from the Greater Mekong subregion countries met to discuss the management of shared ecosystems. Photo provided by Nauman Haque.

Working together, leaders of the Greater Mekong Sub-region made commitments for collaborative planning in the watershed

It was agreed that management of the Mekong River based on principles of the landscape approach will have important implications for the ecological basis of production in the region, as well as for economic development, and poverty alleviation. It was also agreed that the complexity of land management systems across the several countries needs to give more consideration to human-environment interactions across sectors, scales, and borders. To cooperatively manage the GMS, the team determined the establishment of a capacity building platform where all stakeholders could meet and share experiences. Also the needs, methods and tools necessary for the integration of the ecosystem approach into national planning, and identification of common capacity gaps across the 6 countries were assessed. The team decided to continue to work closely with the project to enhance basin-wide institutional capacity needs for ecosystem management, and explore opportunities to integrate the landscape approach into national and regional development plans.

Creating a collaborative environment for land use planning allows for the interests of all stakeholders to be represented in decisions made on land and water resources that affect a wider region. Photo provided by Nauman Haque.

Regional efforts enjoy international support

Preceding this meeting was another two day meeting where several UNEP-IEMP employees and partners came together to discuss a 10-year strategy on ecosystems, climate and livelihoods focused on achieving ecosystem management reform. The 10-year programme will endeavor to promote South-South cooperation initiatives that will have global implications. It aims to assist developing countries to restore and conserve their ecosystems, whilst addressing the impacts of climate change and improving livelihoods through the provisioning of knowledge, capacity, technology, and policy support. The programme is aimed at providing support for the implementation of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, as well as informs policy debates of the three Rio conventions i.e. CBD, UNCCD, and the UNFCCC with the long term objective of assisting countries to integrate ecosystem-based approaches into their national policies, as was initiated in the mentioned meeting of the stakeholders of the greater Mekong Sub-region.

Learn More

UNEP: Maintsteaming Environment Through Region Forms (Asia Pacific)

Greening Commodity Agriculture: Agri-Environmental Policy in East and Southeast Asia

Greening Commodity Agriculture

September 15^th Book Launch & Panel Discussion
This event will take place in Washington, D.C., and made available worldwide through a live webcast.