Farmer in Lubombo, South Africa, proudly shows thatching grass, one of the many resources available from the multipurpose landscape she manages. Photo: Emmanuel Torquebiau/CIRAD
By Emmanuel Torquebiau, French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD)
Multipurpose mosaic landscapes can simultaneously serve the objectives of biodiversity conservation and agricultural production. This beautiful vision is also a formidable challenge because conservation of natural resources has historically been at odds with the development paradigm. Yet, there are smart farmers who take care of their land so that it answers to these two objectives. These landscapes are also climate-smart, because they combine attributes of climate change adaptation and mitigation. How do we ensure that the multipurpose nature of these landscapes is recognized and the farmers behind them rewarded? This question inspired a group of colleagues to develop an index for characterizing farmers’ smart landscapes.
Our journey starts in the Lubombo landscape of South Africa, where farmers historically isolated during the apartheid years have managed to shape their land as a mosaic of fields, grazing areas and natural or semi-natural areas. The resulting landscape is a beautiful blend of farmed and wild zones. In order to characterize the multifunctional performance of the landscape, we designed an index based on 40 questions asked to farmers and a range of other stakeholders. Questions investigated a series of ecoagriculture and ecosystem services criteria in Lubombo. On a scale from 0 to 1, local farmers reported an index value ranging from 0.58 to 0.86, while other stakeholders reported a range between 0.48 to 0.80. Interestingly, cultural services including cultural diversity and identity, cultural landscape and heritage values, aesthetic, spiritual and recreational benefits were ranked first by all participants, while the importance of institutions in the landscape (i.e. the ability of existing institutions to support landscape-level management) ranked last. Thus a simple indexing procedure like this one can lead to very interesting discoveries, such as the greater perceived importance of spiritual worth, which then can be used for decision-making.
We believe including standards that are relevant at the landscape scale can support the idea of “landscape labeling,” or a certification mechanism that describes whether a landscape is smart or not in terms of its ability to provide a range of goods and services. Our index indicates whether or not biodiversity conservation can coexist with the presence of human populations and their activities; where this is the case, a label can be awarded to the landscape. Landscape labels can generate added value to any commodity (e.g. crop, wood, milk, honey) or service (e.g. ecotourism, lodging) originating in the landscape in question and, consequently, can contribute to increasing farmers’ incomes. The label can then be used as a marketing tool to generate extra money for local residents and encourage them to maintain their well-balanced landscapes.
We tested this idea of the landscape label with communities in South Africa and Zimbabwe. We were able to compare two different landscapes – the Lumbombo and Savé Valley Conservancy landscapes. The values determined by the index confirmed our hypothesis that one of the landscapes has more multifunctional attributes than the other. We also interviewed farmers on their perception of the “landscape approach” and found that things are not as simple as they may appear: landscape-level management is more often a consequence of farming constraints and socio-economic conditions than a deliberate decision. “Landscape yes, but an acceptable livelihood first,” is perhaps a good summary of our findings. Yet, our label can contribute directly to improving livelihoods.
So is this a chicken-and-egg story? Probably not, if adequate public policies can also contribute to that idea of the landscape approach. Unfortunately, our review of existing policy shows that the multipurpose landscape context is virtually absent from existing official texts. So, this is where we stand on the struggle for smart landscapes. What are potential ways forward?
Read the full study on which this post is based.
The author would like to acknowledge intellectual contributions from Munyaradzi Chitakira, University of South Africa; Nathalie Cholet, Montpellier SUPAGRO, France; Patrick Alexander, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Joseph Fleury, Montpellier SUPAGRO; and Willem Ferguson, University of Pretoria, South Africa.
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