Collaborative Forum on Landscape Planning launched to advance integrated management of critical and endangered ecosystem.
The Atlantic Forest (or the Mata Atlântica, as it is known in Brazil) bridges 17 contiguous coastal states on the eastern coast of Brazil, and is one of the most biodiverse and endangered biomes in the world. Almost half of all the plants found in this forest are found nowhere else in the world (endemic species), however over the past 50 years, urban and agricultural expansion and overexploitation of forests have destroyed up to 93% of the original forest cover to provide for human populations centered around Brazil’s major metropolitan areas where 72% of Brazil’s population resides (such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro).
A number of landscape partnerships in Brazil are leading the way in developing technical and institutional innovations to address the complex challenges of restoring productive lands, improving ecosystem services, while supporting sustainable livelihoods. For example, PACTO (the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact) has already committed to restoring 1 million hectares as part of the Bonn Challenge, through their work with agricultural communities throughout the Atlantic Forest. For these initiatives to be successful, integrated approaches are urgently needed to involve active collaboration across multiple sectors (public, private and civil society) at a landscape scale.
Dialogue for sustainable landscapes
On August 22 and 23, 2017, representatives from 16 leading organizations with existing partnerships and activities for the restoration of the Atlantic Forest of Brazil gathered in São Paulo to catalyze an historic first attempt to integrate landscape management (ILM) across the 17 contiguous states of the Atlantic Forest.
The workshop, Dialogue, Planning and Integrated Management of Sustainable Landscapes, promoted the exchange of experiences among the participating institutions through the launch of a “landscape learning network”, and identified methods of working together that allow significant advances in learning about Integrated Landscape Management in the Atlantic Forest, including restoration, conservation and sustainable development.
With funding from the Mitsubishi Foundation, the workshop was co-organized and facilitated by EcoAgriculture Partners, Apremavi (Association for the Preservation of the Upper Itajaí Valley), and The Brazilian Forest Dialogue. The event brought together diverse representatives from the International Forestry Dialogue, numerous Forest Forums (including Bahia, São Paulo, Paraná/Santa Catarina and Espírito Santo), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), World Resources Institute (WRI), Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), Pact for the Restoration of the Atlantic Forest (PACTO), the Center for Studies and Promotion of Group Agriculture (Cepagro), and the Institute for Democracy and Sustainability (IDS).
Landscape learning network
Apremavi, EcoAgriculture Partners, and the Brazilian Forest Dialogue opened the workshop presenting expectations and working methodologies. The invited institutions presented brief accounts of their work history, how they relate to landscape planning and what the effect of this work may be to improve understanding of individual organizations’ unique capacities, contributions, and innovations related to ILM.
One strategic method for working together was embraced: the “landscape learning network.” Its value was seen as helping to accelerate and scale up promising restoration initiatives by public, private and civic sectors in the Atlantic Forest by taking a multi-sector approach. This multi-sector approach emphasizes simultaneous investments in ecological conservation, sustainable production and local livelihood outcomes through synergistic practices and policies and cross-sector decision-making at the landscape scale.
IUCN’s Miguel Moraes offered his perspective that for a landscape learning network initiative to be successful, it must “build coherence between projects, mature existing content, and be proactive in presenting future proposals by taking advantage of windows of opportunity.”
João Paulo Capobianco, of IDS, likewise stressed the importance of action over theoretical language: “We can no longer get lost in the dialogue of theoretical methodologies; learning about planning integrated landscapes is learned in practice.”
Ivone Namikawa, from the Forest Dialogue, stressed the importance of adding missing actors to the forum so they can bring the results of successful experiences to the fill weaknesses in projects that need support. Ivone additionally offered that “the presence of the Academia must be effective, not only coming to bring a more theoretical contribution, but recording all the new contributions that will be given by the group.”
Grounded learning spaces
With unanimous agreement, the Collaborative Forum on Landscape Planning was born as “an active network that influences, articulates and integrates funders, supporters and executors in a strategic way to draw attention to and strengthen the ILM movement, that will make concrete actions at the landscape scale actually feasible”. The value of such a forum was seen as attracting more resources, engaging new partners, and achieving landscape scale in each individualized work efforts.
Much more than merely a new professional network, participants identified the need to develop site-based learning spaces for landscape planning to ground capacity-building and participatory planning for Integrated Landscape Management. Nine potential pilot sites and activities for cross-landscape learning were identified to bring institutions physically together to communicate initiatives, share integrative tools and available resources, and strengthen projects. Proposed sites were from diverse regions of the Atlantic Forest, such as the Paths of Tibagi (southern Bahia state), the River Doce Basin (Minas Gerais/Espiritu Santo states), and Mantiqueira/Paraíba/Cantareira (São Paulo state).
What’s next
Participants outlined key criteria for the proposal of these pilot sites. Advocates for each of the nine pilot sites are working now to detail proposed activities and to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed pilot areas. The first official task of the Collaborative Forum on Landscape Planning will be to select the first few pilot sites, and to develop a strategic plan for the first collaborative effort to integrate landscape management in the Atlantic Forest.
Stay tuned to more integrated landscape activities coming from the Atlantic Forest of Brazil!