The tool is designed to operationalize the landscape approach. It is based on a set of systematic data collection tools that measure environmental and livelihood outcomes, while quantifying environmental and institutional conditions. Using a comparative approach, it allows for deducting general trends about the interacting and overlapping factors constraining livelihoods and landscape prosperity, while providing specific answers about intervention options and leverage points.
The sentinel landscapes initiative is currently active in 20 countries (Latin America, Africa and Asia). The research instruments were aligned with already existing data networks (IFRI, InDepth, LDSF, PEN, lsms) to have a more global relevance. We have established two interoperability data sharing platforms with more than 100 datasets uploaded and shared.
A much-needed, comparable long-term datasets of socioeconomic and biophysical changes at the landscape scale. Contrary to the argument that comparative research leads to a level of abstraction that does not give justice to development specific place based research goals, we argue that in fact only an understanding of the general drivers of actors behavior provides information about potential intervention options.
Anja Gassner, Sentinel Landscape coordinator - World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)
Development Practitioners, Local Authority, Researchers, Subnational / National Government
