To our beloved community,
In our final days of operation, EcoAgriculture Partners board and staff have been reflecting on EcoAg’s impact over the past 25 years. Together, we developed a field of knowledge and practice, advocated for it locally and internationally, and integrated it into the global conservation and development movements. When my colleague Max Levy returned from the UN CCD Conference of the Parties in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, last month, he spoke enthusiastically about how integrated landscape approaches were woven into the fabric of conversations, panels, and presentations. This is a true milestone for EcoAg: the message has been received, and now others are tasked with carrying the work forward.
As a convening organization, EcoAg has thrived because of its relationships, creating formal and informal networks of leaders and practitioners that infused the integrated landscape movement with joy and connection as well as intellectual exchange. We deeply appreciate your involvement in the creation and momentum of this movement.
Legacy
In order to preserve EcoAg’s legacy and contributions, we redesigned this website to better serve the landscape community, particularly in sorting through the deep trove of publications we leave behind. We have arranged for it to be maintained until mid-2031, and we hope it remains a valuable source of research, tools, and information.
We are partnering with the Forest History Society’s Environmental History Archives of North America to archive EcoAg’s documents, correspondence, photographs, and other work, which will be available to the public upon request. Look for the archive to be published in 2029; the archivists need time to review and index the contents.
Carrying the Work Forward
While EcoAgriculture Partners is closing, the mission continues. 1000 Landscapes for 1 Billion People will continue to convene landscape leaders, researchers, and practitioners, alongside many other partner organizations dedicated to advancing integrated landscape action. We hope you continue to engage with courage and hope for a thriving future for communities, landscapes, and the planet.
Thank you for all your support throughout the years. We invite you to stay connected with our staff and board members via LinkedIn and other social media.
Best wishes,
Heidi I. Jones, CEO
Farewell to the EcoAgriculture Partners Community: A Note from Sara Scherr
From its inception in 2002, at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, EcoAgriculture Partners aimed to be a small, nimble catalyst for advancing the field of integrated landscape management (ILM), helping people manage landscapes in ways that jointly support agricultural production, livelihoods, biodiversity, and ecosystem health.
We started at a time when most landscape action focused on single priorities: forest management, watershed management, biodiversity protection, scenic beauty. The environmental community often saw agriculture as a major threat to biodiversity and ecosystems, while the agricultural production community felt embattled by calls for multifunctionality. EcoAgriculture, with its commitment to integration across these different objectives, was viewed with suspicion by some and skepticism by many others.
What a journey!
For a few years, we published a quarterly newsletter to share new science, programs, and thinking: “all the world’s news about multifunctional agricultural landscape management.” That gives a sense of how marginal the idea was on the world stage at the time, even if integrated approaches were already emerging in the field.
Fast forward to 2026. The growing “polycrisis” of economic, social, ecological, and climate threats is shifting basic paradigms. Many people are actively seeking “polysolutions,” and ILM offers a powerful approach with the potential both to empower local people and to contribute to national and international goals in cost-effective ways.
The same volume of new information about ILM that we painstakingly explored every quarter 20 years ago is now released every day by 100s of organizations, practitioners, governments, companies, researchers, financiers, and NGOs. This year, colleagues and I published a review article synthesizing evidence on advances in ILM and the institutions supporting it. While the world is still far from where we need to be, landscape partnerships and programs have proliferated. Far more has been achieved than we could have hoped for or imagined in 2002.
So although I am sad to see EcoAgriculture close after 24 years of such exciting and rewarding work, the timing makes sense. The field is now large and diverse, with many initiatives carrying this work forward. Some grew directly from EcoAgriculture’s efforts, while others reflect the many seeds EcoAgriculture helped to plant and nurture over the years, through its ideas, people, partnerships, networks, tools and initiatives.
One of the most visible and direct of these is 1000 Landscapes for 1 Billion People, a global collaborative working to strengthen the support infrastructure for landscape partnerships. As co-founder and former Chair of 1000 Landscapes, I remain active as an Advisor and co-lead its Research Working Group. I also serve as editor in chief of the new journal, CABI Multifunctional Landscape, developed by CABI with 1000 Landscapes to bridge the science and practice of integrated landscape approaches.
Let’s stay connected. Please join the 1000 Landscapes community. Follow the journal to keep up with new ideas in the field.
I close with heartfelt thanks to the nearly 100 EcoAgriculture staff, board members, fellows, and interns with whom I worked over the years. Together, we created a unique organization. My warm thanks also go to the many cherished collaborators who were part of this journey. By working closely together, creatively and through long-term relationships built on trust, we generated ideas, partnerships, and initiatives whose influence continues to grow and bear fruit.
I wish you all joy, good health, and inspiring adventures.
Sara J. Scherr
Co-Founder, President and CEO of EcoAgriculture Partners, 2002–2024