Remote sensing combined with social-ecological data: The importance of diverse land uses for ecosystem service provision in north-eastern Madagascar

Through ongoing deforestation in the tropics, forest-related ecosystem services are declining, while ecosystem services provided by agricultural land uses are on the increase. Land system science provides a framework for analysing the links between land use change and the resulting socio-environmental trade-offs. However, the evidence base to support the navigation of such trade-offs is often lacking, as information on land use cannot directly be obtained through remote sensing and census data is often unavailable at sufficient spatial resolution. The global biodiversity hotspot of north-eastern Madagascar exemplifies these challenges. Combining land use data obtained through remote sensing with social-ecological data from a regional level household survey, we attempt to make the links between land use and ecosystem service benefits explicit. Our study confirmed that remotely sensed information on landscapes reflects households’ involvement in rice production systems. We further characterized landscapes in terms of “ecosystem service bundles” linked to specific land uses, as well as in terms of ecosystem service benefits to households. The map of landscape types could help direct future conservation and development efforts towards places where there is potential for success

Remote sensing combined with social-ecological data: The importance of diverse land uses for ecosystem service provision in north-eastern Madagascar

Through ongoing deforestation in the tropics, forest-related ecosystem services are declining, while ecosystem services provided by agricultural land uses are on the increase. Land system science provides a framework for analysing the links between land use change and the resulting socio-environmental trade-offs. However, the evidence base to support the navigation of such trade-offs is often lacking, as information on land use cannot directly be obtained through remote sensing and census data is often unavailable at sufficient spatial resolution. The global biodiversity hotspot of north-eastern Madagascar exemplifies these challenges. Combining land use data obtained through remote sensing with social-ecological data from a regional level household survey, we attempt to make the links between land use and ecosystem service benefits explicit. Our study confirmed that remotely sensed information on landscapes reflects households’ involvement in rice production systems. We further characterized landscapes in terms of “ecosystem service bundles” linked to specific land uses, as well as in terms of ecosystem service benefits to households. The map of landscape types could help direct future conservation and development efforts towards places where there is potential for success

Identifying agents of change for sustainable land governance

Sustainable land governance in a telecoupled world is currently a challenge. Distant actors, institutions, and interactions shape local land uses and are assumed to affect sustainable development in critical ways as they exert new and often additional claims on land and trigger adverse local impacts like displacement. Action towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is urgently needed, as are agents of change that will initiate sustainability transformations. However, empirical studies on transformation pathways towards sustainable land governance remain scarce. Moreover, very few studies have addressed the identification of actors through whom such transformation might be achieved. To address this gap, we analysed the likelihood of actors becoming agents of change based on their aims, resources, and relational profiles in the land governance network. Our study focused on Madagascar, a country that manifests unsustainable land governance, with distant actors increasingly influencing local land use. We combined an analysis of agency with social network analysis to disentangle attributes and the transformative potential of different actors involved in land governance in northeastern Madagascar. Our results show that actors have different combinations of aims, resources, and relational profiles. Combined analysis of their agency and social networks enabled us to identify potential agents of change and yielded options for transformation actions through which they can become operational agents of change. Our research contributes to promoting pathways to sustainability transformations where actors with various agency levels and social network assets are empowered to establish sustainable land governance. The combination of agency analysis and social network analysis is an innovative method that helps to advance sustainability science

Land Competition under Telecoupling: Distant Actors’ Environmental versus Economic Claims on Land in North-Eastern Madagascar

In north-eastern Madagascar, maintenance of biodiversity competes with expansion of land for agriculture and mining. The concept of “telecoupling„ provides a framework for analysis of distant actors and institutions that influence local land use decisions. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the extent of telecoupling of land governance in north-eastern Madagascar and a lack of evidence regarding its role in driving land use change and land competition. Using a descriptive Social Network Analysis, we disentangled distant interactions between actors in terms of flows and institutions. Our findings show that the domains of economic and environmental interactions are dominated by actors from different sectors that have claims on the same land but generally do not interact. Distant influences occurring via remote flows of goods, money, and institutions serve to reinforce local land competition. Balancing economic and environmental land claims for more sustainable regional development in north-eastern Madagascar requires collaboration between actors across sectors, scales, and domains

Data for "Mixed impacts of protected areas and a cash crop boom on human well-being in north-eastern Madagascar"

Dataset (1), codebook (2), explanation of responses (3), and interview protocol (4) for journal article "Mixed impacts of protected areas and a cash crop boom on human well-being in north-eastern Madagascar" People and Nature. DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10377 Please note the following. The following variables have been removed from the dataset to guarantee respondents’ anonymity: 1.a.2 - Place (place of origin if not born in the village) 1.d.1b – Function (function in the village if the respondent has one) The following variable have been removed from the dataset given the few responses collected: 4.c – Place_in_forest (places in the forest important to the respondent

Nature’s contributions to human wellbeing under climate change: Evidence from Central and Eastern Madagascar - Interview and workshop transcriptions

The project “Nature’s contributions to human wellbeing under climate change: Evidence from Central and Eastern Madagascar” investigates the effects of climate change on ecosystems and the consequences of ecosystem degradation for human wellbeing across four case studies in Central and Eastern Madagascar. We used participatory community workshops and semi-structured interviews as empirical research methods. Therefore, the data for this project is in the form of workshop and interview transcriptions